WSU receives USDA grants for agricultural innovation

Washington State University has been awarded two grants for a total of nearly $916,000 in funding through the Conservation Innovation Grants program administered by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced this month the investment of $26.6 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture into 45 projects on both rural and urban farms across the country. The investment is made through the Conservation Innovation Grants program, which fosters innovation in conservation tools and strategies to improve things like on-farm energy and fertilizer use, as well as market-based strategies to improve water quality or mitigate climate change.

“The Conservation Innovation Grant program is a highly competitive conservation grant program that helps put the very best conservation tools to work on privately held farms and forests, for maximum environmental impact,” said Vilsack.

WSU will receive $460,010 in funding for a project titled “Mobile System for Nutrient (Phosphorus) Recovery and Cost Efficient Nutrient Transport.” Through this project, WSU proposes to demonstrate technologies that can improve cost efficiency of transporting manure nutrients from regions of dense populations of animal agriculture operations to areas that have a demand for manure nutrients. The goals will be: (1) to successfully demonstrate the mobile unit at numerous dairies, (2) develop an effective regional phosphorus recycling relationship between the Washington dairy industry and forage growers and (3) increase the understanding of phosphorus management by both industries.

WSU will receive $455,915 for a second project titled “Washington State University – Water Irrigation System Efficiency, confronting insufficient water in Washington state by increasing irrigation efficiencies through education and consultation. Through this second project, WSU proposes to increase irrigation efficiencies throughout Washington by encouraging adoption of proven irrigation monitoring technology, and use of irrigation-efficient equipment and conservation practices through the following objectives: (1) Educate and enroll farmers in the Irrigation Scheduler Mobile system, a tailored water use efficiency monitoring application associated with a water savings value of 20 percent, (2) Increase water use efficiency by providing voluntary irrigation assessments and delivering a tailored compilation of recommendations for irrigation system improvements. Quantify changes in water use efficiency rates of participants, (3) Facilitate the adoption of irrigation equipment upgrades by providing consultation.

Conservation Innovation Grants are funded through NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The maximum grant is $2 million per project, and the length of time for project completion is three years.

For this round of funding, USDA received 170 applications requesting more than $100 million, which far exceeded the initial funding target of approximately $20 million. USDA is making an investment of $26.6 million this year, which will leverage an additional $32.5 million in matching investments from the grantees, more than doubling the federal investment.