randy dye, state foerster of west virginia. president of the association of state forthers out of sharlton, west virginia. mr. charles a.m. holmes chairman forced resource policy group. the national association of conservation districts from alabama. mr. richard swab procurement manager on behalf of the american loggers council and southeastern wood producers association from perry, florida. and mr. michael t. gorgan junior executive vice president and ceo of the society of american fosters in bethesda, maryland. it looks like our second panel is all seated. i now recognize mr. byrd, you please begin with your five minutes of testimony. >> good afternoon, thank you. sorry, thank you for allowing me to appear before you this afternoon. i extend that thank you to chairman thompson and to ranking member holden as well as the other members of the subcommittee. a bit of an introduction. we manage a family forest in central virginia. i also have the pleasure of working with the american forest foundation, a nonprofit organization who

we currently have a forest management plan and a registered foerster to assist us with our forest management. the importance of conservation cannot be stated enough. that is why nacd supports the passage of the 2012 farm bill. conservation districts throughout this country have been strong participants and supporters of the farm stewardship programs which provide technical assistance made by state partners to nonindustrial private forest owners. since the program's creation it has produced over 270,000 resource management plans for more than 31 million acres of private forestland developing a sound resource management in conservation plans is the principal tenant to nacd. nacd is one of the four partners of the joint forestry team. including the forest service, nrcs and my fellow panelists the national association of state foresters. the forest management plan template the team has helped develop serves as a primary good dayness to nrcs forestry technical service providers. i serve as chairman of the joint forestry team in 2010 and saw firsthand the value that the team provided to not just t