Oregon Tilth’s 13-year contribution agreement with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has led to more conservation assistance for organic producers. Since 2010, Oregon Tilth has led over 160 trainings and trained over 4,660 NRCS staff members across the country. 

Oregon Tilth Education Specialist, Marina Oriel, works in conjunction with USDA NRCS staff to implement environmentally sound practices and train NRCS staff on working with organic producers.

“My work is driven by what NRCS staff want to learn about organic systems, to ultimately help them support the conservation goals of organic producers. I was thrilled to be able to work with so many states in 2022, and I’m looking forward to working with many of them again in 2023—diving deeper into some of these organic conservation topics—as well as several new states. It’s such a pleasure to work with NRCS and I’m excited to see a continuously growing interest in organic agriculture,” said Marina Oriel. 

In 2022, we delivered trainings and technical assistance on organic agriculture and conservation in organic systems to staff in 19 states. We led six webinars with over 1830 participants on topics such organic agriculture as a climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy, and challenges and opportunities in urban organic agriculture.  Further, we developed resources on the topics of conservation, biodiversity, and nutrient management.