William “Bill” Richards, a soil conservation pioneer who served as chief of USDA’s Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) from 1990-1993 under President George H.W. Bush, died Tuesday. He was 93.
“Bill Richards was among the first to truly showcase the potential of no-till farming in the U.S. His commitment to conserving our agricultural resources laid a critical foundation for today’s sustainable practices,” said Mike Estadt, Extension Educator and Assistant Professor at Ohio State University who was a personal friend. "His vision and actions continue to inspire our work in environmental stewardship.”
He graduated from The Ohio State University in 1953 with a degree in Ag Economics. Richards started running his family farm near Circleville, Ohio, in 1954, where he built a successful, diversified farming operation and explored innovative ways to grow crops while protecting the soil. He switched to farming without tillage in 1957, a time when most farmers were still plowing their fields every fall.
“Everybody thought we were crazy because we were really doing something different, but we had the science behind us,” Richards told The Ohio State Alumni magazine in an interview.
Richards founded Ohio Top Farmers organization, a purchasing and marketing cooperative which was an early model for farmers to collaborate and improve their margins.
Former Soil Conservation Service chief and Ohio farmer Bill Richards talks to Ohio State Conservationist (now NRCS Chief) Terry Cosby during a 2015 tour of Ohio farmer and soil health expert David Brandt's farm. (Photo: USDA/Dianne Johnson) His early success and passion surrounding no-till farming gave him a national platform to promote the practice and led to his selection as SCS Chief. During his tenure at the SCS, he initiated the highly successful National Alliance for Crop Residue Management, and spearheaded a formal partnership agreement among SCS, the National Association of Conservation Districts, and the National Association of State Conservation Agencies.
He worked hard to change the culture at the SCS so that farmers were treated as customers and agribusinesses could be part of the solution.
“What the SCS Chief position did was give me a platform to ‘sell’ no-till. We went to Monsanto’s headquarters and met with their president and the whole works. They cut the price of Roundup, which was a breakthrough. We started the residue management campaign, and we got to set standards of how much had to be left on the surface,” he told No-Till Farmer.
Richards served on numerous boards and organizations including the Conservation Technology Information Center, U.S. Landcare Pioneers and the 25 x ’25 Steering Committee (Solutions from the Land). He was inducted into the Ohio Agriculture Hall of Fame and has been the recipient of distinguished service awards from Ohio State and Purdue Universities, the National Association of Conservation Districts, and the National Association of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. He was a Farm Foundation fellow and a member of Alpha Gamma Rho.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Gracie, and son, Steve, and is survived by his sons Elmon and Bruce.
His full obituary and funeral details are available here.
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