CA Conservation Innovation Grant | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The CA Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) is a competitive USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) funding opportunity for projects based in California that are meant to speed up the real-world adoption of innovative conservation practices and technologies in working agricultural and forest landscapes. It is authorized under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and is structured to leverage federal dollars to produce practical, field-tested conservation approaches that can be taken to scale. A central expectation is that funded work will generate usable outputs such as methods, tools, guidance, or demonstrated systems that can be incorporated into NRCS technical references (for example, practice standards and technical guidance) or adopted broadly by producers and the private sector.

For FY 2016, NRCS anticipated up to $375,000 total available statewide, with an award ceiling of $75,000 and roughly five awards expected. Awards are made as cooperative agreements, and projects may run from one to three years (but not longer than three). Proposals are open to a wide set of eligible applicants, including federally recognized Tribal governments, state and local governments (including special districts), public and private institutions of higher education, 501(c)(3) nonprofits (other than universities), and individuals. Applications were required to be submitted through Grants.gov, and also emailed as a PDF to the state CIG program contact; submissions were due by 4:30 p.m. on June 17, 2016. The listed program contact for this solicitation was Erik Beardsley, NRCS California State CIG Program Manager, based in Davis, CA.

CIG is specifically aimed at demonstration, pilot testing, on-farm conservation research, and implementation of approaches that are already proven or sufficiently studied to have a high likelihood of success, but that still face barriers to adoption. The program emphasizes showing that a practice or system works under field conditions and documenting its environmental and operational performance, including effectiveness, practicality, affordability, and usability. CIG can include on-farm conservation research if it uses a statistically valid design (replication and appropriate analysis) and is tied directly to improving natural resource outcomes in agricultural production systems. Traditional lab or purely exploratory research is generally not what the program is trying to fund; instead, the focus is on applied work that reduces uncertainty for producers and conservation planners and helps move successful practices into routine use.

Applications go through an initial screening for completeness and compliance, and incomplete or noncompliant proposals are removed from consideration. Complete proposals are then evaluated by a technical peer review panel using the solicitation’s evaluation criteria, after which they move to a California Review Board that provides recommendations to the NRCS State Conservationist, who makes the final funding selections. Another important state-specific expectation is that projects should be designed with awareness of NRCS practice standards, planning criteria, and assessment tools, and should produce outcomes that can strengthen or augment NRCS technical guidance. Applicants are directed to align their work with the California electronic Field Office Technical Guide (eFOTG), which is NRCS’s primary reference for state technical standards and implementation details.

The California solicitation lays out priority resource concerns and example project topics across several major categories. Under soil health, priorities include drought and salinity adaptation in cropping systems; integrated systems that build soil organic matter in high-intensity vegetable production; innovative management systems for annual and perennial crops; low-water-use cover crops; linking soil health improvements to better irrigation efficiency; and, on forestlands, demonstrating suites of practices that improve soil/site quality and long-term forest productivity. Water conservation priorities emphasize not only technical solutions, but also clear discussion of adoption barriers and data-integration challenges, along with an innovative plan to overcome them. Example focus areas include maximizing capture of natural precipitation by optimizing infiltration across landscapes (including opportunities to infiltrate flood flows or runoff on cropland) with measurable reductions in supplemental irrigation, and redesigning irrigation systems to flex between surface water and groundwater availability while addressing practical constraints like water rights, surface supply policy, and downstream impacts.

Water quality priorities include field demonstration of integrated conservation systems that reduce nutrients, pesticides, and sediment leaving irrigated cropland, including approaches such as integrated weed management, bioreactors, biological pest control, and vegetated ditches. Additional focus areas include improving manure application rate, timing, and uniformity; developing grazing and pasture/rangeland prescriptions that protect water quality; forest management prescriptions that improve water quality; calibrating or “ground-truthing” NRCS tools such as the Water Quality Index for Agriculture; and pairing habitat goals with water outcomes, such as using pollinator habitat to reduce runoff and erosion and improve infiltration. The solicitation also calls out nutrient management innovations, including nitrogen fertilization systems that reduce nitrate leaching into groundwater, methods to use nitrates in groundwater as fertilizer sources, and approaches to reduce salinity (total dissolved solids) in discharge water from specialty crop production.

Water quantity priorities focus on practical measurement, scheduling, and performance evaluation. Examples include innovative on-farm irrigation flow measurement methods used for scheduling or system evaluation; new irrigation scheduling tools and systems; subsurface drip irrigation performance evaluation; rangeland practices and livestock prescriptions that improve water quality while increasing water retention and storage; and tools or methodologies that NRCS and partners can use to encourage widespread adoption of improved irrigation management. In forest settings, the solicitation highlights vegetation management approaches designed to increase water yield and/or prolong downstream release while maintaining ecosystem services such as water quality, soil health, pest resilience, and wildlife benefits.

Other priorities extend beyond water and soil. Under plant quality and forest health, California sought development of a minimum set of forest health indicators (by forest type) for the CA Forest Health Scorecard to support both ecosystem services and economic viability. For oak woodland health, the solicitation encourages projects that document effective oak woodland treatments implemented with EQIP assistance to update NRCS standards and specifications (including practices like Forest Stand Improvement and Upland Wildlife Habitat Management), along with decision-support tools for site selection and resource assessment to improve oak woodland condition and habitat outcomes.

Air quality and climate change priorities focus heavily on practical, measurable approaches for greenhouse gas reduction and climate adaptation. Example projects include amending soils with organic additives such as compost or biochar to improve water holding capacity and soil organic matter while establishing monitoring methods to estimate greenhouse gas benefits, carbon sequestration, or soil decontamination. The solicitation also highlights drought adaptation strategies that address climate-driven mismatches such as flowering and pollination timing (for instance, modifying pollinator hedgerow plant mixes to support native pollinators and honey bees under shifting bloom windows). Conservation tillage demonstrations are encouraged when paired with credible monitoring of outcomes like soil moisture benefits, organic matter increases, reduced fuel use, and carbon or greenhouse gas impacts. California also signaled interest in validating the transferability of technologies like infrared sensing, aerial imagery, and other peer-reviewed tools that can deliver near real-time data for conservation planning and emissions reduction, as well as systems that quantify emissions reductions from field operations (pesticide and fertilizer applications, tillage) using GIS or related tools. There is also interest in reviewing and updating NRCS practice materials to incorporate these newer measurement and evaluation technologies where practical.

Energy conservation priorities include demonstrating on-farm renewable energy systems (such as hydropower, solar, geothermal, biomass gasification, or wind) that displace fossil-fuel-based energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The program also supports innovative implementation systems that increase adoption of energy audits and efficiency upgrades across both facilities and field operations, and projects that show irrigation-related energy savings from improved irrigation technologies and management. Another highlighted pathway is cropping system design that improves nutrient cycling and reduces energy use through rotations and long-term no-till systems that enhance soil biological activity.

Waste recycling and resource conservation priorities focus on turning excess biomass into usable products and reducing costs tied to conservation and fuel reduction work. Example topics include evaluating and demonstrating technologies for recycling biomass into products such as biochar, energy products, or remanufactured materials; developing biomass recycling systems through waste management plans (or equivalents) that enhance conservation outcomes like fire hazard reduction; documenting constraints and thresholds related to wildlife needs, fire risk, and soil and water quality; and advancing practical California implementation of the national NRCS Waste Recycling conservation practice standard, including development of specifications, job sheets, and example waste management system plans for forestland biomass recycling.

Wildlife-related priorities include improving assessment tools and integrating habitat goals into working lands conservation planning. Examples include calibrating the Stream Visual Assessment Protocol for different California aquatic ecosystems; creating strategies that weave wildlife habitat management into agricultural landscapes in a holistic, ecosystem-services framework; and testing practical modifications to common infrastructure to reduce wildlife harm or add habitat value, such as alternatives to wood fence corner posts that provide raptor perches, or improved capping of open pipes used in conservation practices to reduce bird and wildlife trapping. The solicitation also encourages building out ecological site description databases linking wildlife species to land resource units, studying grazing as a sage-grouse habitat management tool, and documenting benefits of improving native pollinator and honey bee habitat for other wildlife. Some examples emphasize expanding pollinator forage mixes (including plants relevant to almond production) to increase habitat quality and continuity before and after almond bloom, improving both native pollinator and managed honey bee fitness.

Overall, the California CIG opportunity is best understood as a practical, adoption-focused conservation funding program: it is looking for projects that can be implemented on the ground, evaluated with credible metrics, and translated into guidance or scalable systems that producers, land managers, and NRCS field staff can readily use. It rewards proposals that pair solid technical design with a clear plan for overcoming adoption barriers, documenting outcomes, and transferring the resulting knowledge into standard practice across California agriculture and forest management.

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