Champaign, IL – April 11, 2023— The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $40 million this year for 31 new projects through its Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program. CIG is one of the ways USDA brings together partners to develop innovative approaches to climate-smart agriculture.
Additionally, USDA is announcing a $19 million investment in two projects focused on nutrient management funded through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), and two new formal partnerships to further nutrient management implementation.
These investments emphasize adoption and implementation of climate-smart practices, including nutrient management, which helps producers manage nutrients and soil amendments to maximize their economic benefit while minimizing their environmental impact.
“These investments move the needle in helping agricultural producers adopt and implement climate-smart practices, including nutrient management,” said Tammy Willis, Acting State Conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Illinois. “This helps producers manage nutrients and soil amendments to maximize their economic benefit, while minimizing their environmental impact.”
This year, NRCS is investing $25 million through On-Farm Trials, which supports more widespread adoption and evaluation of innovative conservation approaches in partnership with agricultural producers. Incentive payments are provided to producers to offset the risk of implementing innovative approaches.
Meanwhile, NRCS is investing $15 million in 17 projects through CIG Classic, which enables partners to develop new tools, technologies, and strategies to support next-generation conservation efforts on working lands and develop market-based solutions to resource challenges.
See the NRCS website for the list of all CIG Classic and CIG On-Farm Trials awarded projects.
For fiscal year 2022, NRCS set aside targeted funds for CIG Classic and On-Farm proposals that entirely benefit underserved producers, which includes producers who have previously lacked access or not participated in NRCS programs. This includes socially disadvantaged producers, military veterans, beginning farmers and limited-resource producers. Additionally, applicants competing for these set-aside funds were able to waive the non-federal match requirements.
Additional funding will be available for CIG On-Farm Trials for fiscal year 2023. The IRA provided $19.5 billion to support climate-smart practices through NRCS conservation programs, enabling NRCS to invest $50 million per year from fiscal years 2023 to 2027 for CIG On-Farm Trials. As part of the next call for proposals, NRCS will prioritize applications that focus on diet and feed management to reduce enteric methane emissions from livestock. More information on the fiscal year 2023 call for proposals is forthcoming.
RCPP Nutrient Management Grants
NRCS awarded two grants through RCPP to help producers achieve more efficient nutrient management within targeted critical conservation areas (CCA):
- Family Farms LLC will improve soil health and reduce the amount of nutrients applied to and lost from cropland in the Mississippi River Basin. This will be done through nutrient management plans that incorporate the addition of biochar to help conserve nutrients by enhancing nutrient efficiency.
- The Environmental Initiative, Inc. will use “nutrientsheds” – interconnected networks of geographically close farms to move and balance nutrient needs – to mitigate excess nutrient run-off adversely affecting the watershed. Within each of the two proposed “nutrientsheds,” participating producers will obtain nutrient management plans so that manure at participating farms can be collected and processed through the partners’ centralized thermophilic anaerobic digesters.
Through RCPP Grants, the lead partner must work directly with agricultural producers to support the development of new conservation structures and approaches that would not otherwise be available under RCPP Classic.
The more than $19 million awarded through these grants builds on the $200 million in RCPP Alternative Funding Arrangement and RCPP Classic partnership projects previously awarded in fiscal year 2022.
The RCPP fiscal year 2023 funding opportunity will be announced in late Spring. The Inflation Reduction Act provided an additional $4.95 billion in RCPP over four years starting in fiscal year 2023 to accelerate the adoption of conservation practices that help producers prepare for and mitigate against the impacts of climate change.
Nutrient Management MOUs
Additionally, as part of its effort to increase use of nutrient management practices, NRCS has also recently signed two Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that further its conservation efforts targeted at improving nutrient management:
- American Society of Agronomy (ASA) and its International Certified Crop Adviser (ICCA) Program establishes a framework enabling ASA to recommend individuals for the NRCS Technical Service Provider (TSP) program. The TSP program enables certified individuals outside of NRCS to provide among other things, nutrient management plans to producers and landowners.
- Truterra (a Land O’ Lakes company) intends to explore opportunities to expand nutrient management adoption and increase technical capabilities of producers and landowners; assess the capabilities and tools of Truterra to deliver nutrient management technical assistance; expedite and streamline the technical assistance delivery system; and collaborate on assessment tools and opportunities to expedite producer participation in broader NRCS programs.
NRCS will continue to leverage additional partnerships to expand capacity and reach new producers with technical and financial assistance. To learn more, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/il.
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