Summary: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is the lead agency responsible for conserving and protecting natural resources on private lands, which constitute about 75 percent of all acreage in the contiguous United States. NRCS' $1 billion budget funds various technical and financial assistance programs to help farmers, ranchers, other landowners, and communities conserve and protect soil, water, and related resources. NRCS has nearly 11,000 employees who work with individuals and communities to develop conservation plans and apply conservation or resource management practices on the land. The agency has not been successful in gathering and analyzing information from these county offices to provide a comprehensive picture of its activities and accomplishments. As a result, Congress, NRCS staff, and others have questioned the agency's accountability for how it spends its funds and what it has accomplished. In 1988, the head of NRCC called for a new agencywide effort to improve accountability by providing better information and resources and analyses on how the agency uses its resources and what it achieves with its funds. This report (1) describes the agency's new approach and the status of its implementation and (2) assesses the extent to which the approach will improve accountability.
