Just north of Las Vegas, Nevada’s Lincoln County is the seventh largest in the country. The county covers 10,637 square miles, 98% of which are public lands. Sparsely populated, producers in Lincoln County focus on the production of Alfalfa hay for dairies in neighboring California and graze livestock on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In this desert climate, producers are challenged by drought and wildfires, which leave the land bare and prone to soil erosion after heavy rains.  

To help producers address these challenges, the Lincoln County Conservation District leveraged NACD’s Technical Assistance (TA) Grants Program to hire staff to share information with producers about funding available through NRCS conservation programs and conservation practices to improve soil health and water quality. Through an agreement with NRCS, this program provides funding for conservation districts across the country to hire staff where additional capacity is needed to improve customer service and reduce workload pressure. With no employees in Lincoln County, NRCS leans on the Lincoln County Conservation District to help get the word out about opportunities to fund conservation through federal programs.  

With staff hired with grant funding from the program, the Lincoln County Conservation District conducted outreach to raise awareness of good soil health practices and encourage producers to apply for funding to implement these practices through NRCS’ Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Producers with a permit to graze on BLM-managed land can apply for EQIP funding to implement conservation that benefits both these public lands and their operations. This use of EQIP funding on public lands for the benefit of both land and producers is established in NACD policy and the association’s federal advocacy efforts. At the local level, “working across ownership lines and melding funding are two ways conservation districts in Nevada can help,” explained Maggie Orr, Vice Chair of the Lincoln County Conservation District.  

“I worked with Maggie for over twenty years and have known her since I was a kid. Maggie is a fighter for conservation and partnerships. She is there for our producers and for Lincoln County,” said Cory Lytle, the Assistant State Conservationist for Field Operations with NRCS in Nevada. With Orr’s leadership, the district sent out 71 letters to producers about opportunities for conservation funding through NRCS and BLM. The mailing contained NRCS fact sheets and the conservation district’s contact information to answer questions and facilitate communication among producers, NRCS, and BLM. As a result, seven new EQIP applications—a significant percentage of the applications received for Lincoln County this year—can be tied directly to the district’s outreach.  

This highlights the importance of outreach, the conservation district’s role in connecting local producers with NRCS, BLM, and other federal programs and coordinating conservation on both private and public lands. 

“Outreach efforts by the Lincoln County Conservation District have contributed to improved communication about NRCS programs that will get more conservation on the ground in Lincoln County,” said District Conservationists Joseph Noyes and Jamie Gottlieb with NRCS’ Ely and Las Vegas Field Offices. “We expect the number of farmers and ranchers we deliver conservation solutions to will continue to increase in a large part to their work.” 

The Lincoln County Conservation District also held soil health workshops, encouraging producers to see soil health practices as viable options for their operations. Each year, the district hosts a booth at the Lincoln County Fair and Rodeo, where they engage with community members and educate the public about soil health practices and other important conservation topics. They also conduct school outreach and share information about soil health in their local newspaper and on social media.  

The district has been “a trailblazer for getting Nevada involved in the NACD TA Grants Program and more,” said Rachel Theler, NACD’s Southwest Region Representative. To keep the momentum going and sustain continuity in services, the Lincoln County Conservation District continues to use the NACD TA Grants Program funding for staffing. The funding is a great help in their rural area, where meeting and sustaining staffing needs can be difficult. In a state with a high percentage of public lands, “the NACD grant funding helps us help NRCS and do larger work in a larger field,” said Orr.