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Valuing Diversity in the USDA

Submitted By Clea Rome, West Area Representative

The role of the USDA’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (ASCR) is to provide leadership and direction for USDA’s civil rights programs and ensure compliance with federal civil rights laws. The USDA’s Diversity Mission Statement, issued by Margo McKay, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in 2008 is as follows:

“To embrace diversity and inclusion as core values that will spur growth and change across the Department; to ensure leadership accountability in the cultivation of a workplace culture where the uniqueness, background, and experience of every employee is trusted, valued, and respected; to strengthen our diversified workforce so we can continue to effectively serve our diverse customers, recruit the best talent, stimulate an environment of productivity, and eliminate under representation, discrimination, and harassment throughout the Department.”

There are three offices within ASCR, the Office of Outreach and Diversity, the Conflict Resolution and Prevention Center, and the Office of Adjudication and Compliance. The ASCR Office of Outreach and Diversity coordinates the National Scholars Program, which provides scholarships to students seeking college degrees in an agricultural field at any one of the 17 1890 Historically Black Land-Grant Universities around the United States. The Office of Outreach and Diversity also runs the Tribal Colleges Education Equity Grants Program and the Tribal Colleges Research Grants Program. In 2004, ASCR created the Center for Minority Farmers, located at USDA headquarters in Washington, DC.

ASCR provides valuable assistance and direction to the agencies within the Department of Agriculture to promote equal opportunity, equal access, and fair treatment for all USDA employees and customers. Ultimately, however, it is up to every employee within our agency to uphold the Department’s mission of diversity. The customer base served by NRCS is rapidly changing. Ethnicities, knowledge and experience, and economic situations in agricultural communities across the United States are more diverse than ever before. The NRCS workforce is changing as well. According to the Government Accountability Office, 35 percent of USDA employees are eligible to retire between now and 2012.

By valuing diversity within our own agency, making strong efforts to reach out to underserved audiences, and adapting our programs and services to fit a wide range of experience, knowledge levels, and cultural approaches, our agency will be better able to meet the new resource conservation challenges emerging in the next decades.
 

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