US farms get the most conservation advice for erosion and water quality

On 16 June 2026 the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS) published a chart showing that American farmers with soil erosion or water quality problems in their fields were more likely to receive technical help than farmers facing other field problems. Water-driven erosion led the list: 36 percent of the affected corn, soybean, cotton and wheat acres received technical assistance.

ERS starts from what it calls a resource concern. Farming depends on natural resources such as soil and water. When management practices degrade one of them, soil for example, so badly that the land can no longer be used productively over the long term, the field is considered to have a resource concern. To deal with it, producers can receive targeted technical assistance, which ERS describes as personalised guidance to improve farm and ranch performance.

The figures come from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), run by ERS and USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). ERS calls the survey USDA's primary source of information on the production practices, resource use and economic well-being of America's farms and ranches. The chart combines four crop surveys: corn in 2021, soybeans in 2018, cotton in 2019 and wheat in 2022.

ERS researchers Andrew B. Rosenberg and Kate Binzen Fuller examined survey data from producers who sought assistance. The chart shows the share of acres with each concern that received technical assistance:

• Water-driven erosion: 36 percent
• On-field water quality: 33 percent
• Wind-driven erosion: 22 percent
• Poor drainage: 20 percent
• Low organic matter: 20 percent
• Soil compaction: 16 percent
• Other within-field soil and water concerns: 26 percent

A field can be counted under more than one concern when the farmer reports several. The help was therefore uneven: assistance rates were highest for erosion and water quality and lower for compaction, poor drainage and low organic matter.

According to ERS, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is the most common provider of technical assistance for on-field resource concerns. Support comes either directly from NRCS or from third-party technical service providers that NRCS reimburses. University cooperative extension staff, state agencies and other sources provide the rest.

The pattern is not new. An earlier ERS bulletin, published in May 2022 by Rosenberg and Steven Wallander, looked at fields of oats, cotton, wheat and soybeans. Farmers reported that 49 percent of those fields had at least one resource concern and 26 percent had several. Of the fields with at least one concern, 24 percent received technical assistance, and 67 percent of the assisted fields got it from NRCS.

NRCS was formerly the Soil Conservation Service. It began on 13 September 1933 as the Soil Erosion Service in the Department of the Interior, headed by the soil conservation pioneer Hugh Hammond Bennett, who was driven by the damage done by the soil erosion that led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The service moved to the Department of Agriculture in 1935 and was renamed NRCS in 1994 to reflect its broader mission.

Resource concerns are one of five trends analysed in the ERS report Status and Trends of USDA Conservation Programs, 2002-2025, published in March 2026. The report reviews the major USDA conservation programmes under the 2002, 2008, 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills, which help producers improve soil health, wildlife habitat, and water and air quality.

Photo: Lynn Betts, USDA NRCS / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Sources: USDA Economic Research Service (ERS), ERS bulletin "USDA Conservation Technical Assistance and Within-Field Resource Concerns" (2022), ERS ARMS data page, Wikipedia (Natural Resources Conservation Service)