Douglas Poole: I’m trying to heal 100 tears of tillage. Don’t pull the support that makes it possible.

By Douglas Poole

When I came back to my family’s dryland farm near Mansfield, Washington, after 20 years away, the land told me something had to change.

My grandfather and father had worked this ground for over 70 years, and the soil showed it. In places, erosion had taken it down to bare bedrock. The more we tilled, the more it blew away. This was no indictment of how my family farmed – my dad is one of the best farmers I know. He always believed there was a better way; the resources just hadn’t presented themselves to him.

That was my third attempt at making this farm work, and I was determined it would be the last. So I started over from the ground up, with a simple premise: The soil is alive, and my job is to treat it that way.

Today, Double P Ranch runs 15,000 acres of dryland crops – wheat, canola, triticale, millet, sorghum, sunflowers and oats – in the rain shadow of the Cascades, where we get 6 to 9 inches of precipitation a year. We haven’t used in-furrow synthetic fertilizers in six years, replacing them with vermicast extracts and fertilizers applied directly to the plants. We run 1,000 to 1,500 acres of cover crops with cattle integration. We’ve improved grazing management across 20,000 acres of native range using virtual fencing technology. And we’ve partnered with WSU researchers for years, hosting one of the longest-running test plots in the state studying soil-building practices.

None of this is ideological. It’s pragmatic. In a 6-to-9-inch rain zone, you learn quickly that soil health is the foundation your entire operation stands on.

Farm Bill conservation programs have been essential tools in building that foundation. Through the State Acres For Wildlife Enhancement Program and the Conservation Reserve Program, we manage 2,000 acres of wildlife habitat and conservation cover. Through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, we’ve added another 1,500 acres of wildlife corridors. The Conservation Stewardship Program has helped us implement precision technologies that reduce or eliminate industrialized chemicals and fertilizers. These are strategic pieces of a landscape-scale conservation system that makes the whole ranch more resilient, for the soil, for the water, for the wildlife, and for the long-term viability of the operation my son will inherit.

We consider our ranch part of a greater ecosystem. No single piece of that ecosystem is solely responsible for its success or failure. But we do see improved soil health, water retention and the return of key habitat species as the basis for our ranch’s stability and success.

None of that would have been possible without NRCS Conservation Technical Assistance staff. As a board supervisor for Foster Creek Conservation District, I see this every day across farms and ranches in our region. CTA staff help producers navigate program requirements, design conservation systems tailored to their specific soils and cropping rotations, and access cost-share funding that makes innovative practices financially viable. In an arid dryland system like ours, the technical details matter enormously. There is no generic solution for a 6-inch rain zone.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act continued long-term funding for USDA’s major conservation programs. That is the right commitment. But since early 2025, NRCS has lost more than 2,600 field staff. The administration’s proposed budget would eliminate discretionary Conservation Technical Assistance funding entirely. Farmers are already waiting up to 18 months for basic conservation plans. In a dryland cropping system where every decision is tied to a narrow seasonal window, that kind of lag can be fatal for a crop, and for a farm.

I’ve spent 12 years trying to heal what a century of tillage and chemicals did to this ground. I work with university researchers. I experiment. I take risks that most producers wouldn’t take without a safety net of technical and financial support. That kind of innovation requires partners – people in local offices who understand the landscape, know the producers, and can help translate ambitious conservation goals into workable farm plans.

Cutting those people is cutting the capacity to do the work. Congress has made the investment. We need the staff to deliver it.

My father strove to leave this farm better than he found it, and I am trying to do the same. My neighbors are all trying to do the same. These resources don’t just benefit our individual operations, they benefit the long-term viability of our entire community.

Douglas Poole, with his wife and son, operates Double P Ranch near Mansfield, Washington. He serves as a board supervisor for Foster Creek Conservation District and is the Past President of the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association.