Conservation Innovation Grant CA | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) California State Office announced a fiscal year 2012 Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) statewide competition designed to push practical, on-the-ground conservation forward by speeding up the adoption of innovative approaches and technologies in agriculture and working lands. The core idea behind CIG is not to fund basic research, but to help take conservation tools that are already proven (or at least well studied with a strong likelihood of success) and put them into real field conditions where they can be demonstrated, evaluated, refined for usability and affordability, and then positioned for wider rollout. NRCS is looking for projects that can realistically lead to technology transfer into NRCS technical guidance (like standards, manuals, and references) or into broader private-sector use, with a strong emphasis on real-world implementation, monitoring, and practical outcomes.

Funding for the California statewide competition totals up to $375,000, with an expectation of about 10 awards. Individual awards must fall between $25,000 and $75,000 (the maximum allowed per grant), and projects may run from one year up to a maximum of three years. The program is competitive, meaning proposals are ranked and selected through a statewide review process. NRCS screens submissions first for completeness and compliance; incomplete applications are removed from consideration. Complete applications are then evaluated by a technical peer review panel using published evaluation criteria, after which the California CIG Program Manager certifies rankings and makes recommendations to the State Conservationist, who makes the final funding decisions. Applicants are notified of selection or non-selection by mail.

A wide range of applicants are eligible, including individuals, small businesses, nonprofit organizations (including 501(c)(3) nonprofits), federally recognized Tribal governments, state governments, local governments (city/township/county), special district governments, and public or state-controlled institutions of higher education. While the notice describes national program availability, this specific opportunity is the California statewide CIG competition administered by the NRCS California State Office. The underlying authority for the program comes from CIG being authorized under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, administered by NRCS under Commodity Credit Corporation authorities.

NRCS lays out what counts as an acceptable CIG project: it must involve development, field testing, evaluation, implementation, and monitoring of either conservation adoption approaches or incentive systems, promising conservation technologies or management/practice systems, and environmentally sound methods that protect and enhance natural resources. To be competitive, proposals are expected to show clear field-based value such as measurable environmental effectiveness across areas like soil, water, air, plants, energy, and animals; practical utility for producers; cost and usability considerations; and a credible path for transferring the knowledge so others can adopt it. The program also encourages adapting conservation solutions across regions or agricultural sectors, and improving performance of existing tools to increase adoption.

For FY 2012 in California, NRCS specifically highlighted four main focus areas for proposals: Nutrient Management, Energy Conservation, Soil Health, and Wildlife (with a mention of CIG Projects Assessment as an additional area of consideration). Within these categories, NRCS provided detailed topic lists and marked certain items as “Priority Need,” signaling special interest. Nutrient Management priorities emphasize demonstrating and quantifying “4R” nutrient stewardship (right source, rate, placement, timing) and its impacts on nutrient use efficiency and yields across major cropping systems, as well as improving tools like the Phosphorus Index to reduce phosphorus losses under varied conditions. The nutrient section also supports demonstrations of precision nutrient application (like low-disturbance fertilizer injection), strategies to reduce nutrient losses from manure systems (including capture, recycling, separation, and transport of manure nutrients), evaluation of enhanced-efficiency fertilizers, dissolved phosphorus capture from runoff and drainage, in-season nitrogen management tools, and outreach approaches that help smaller operations (such as small dairies) implement whole-farm nutrient and sediment loss reduction strategies.

Energy Conservation topics focus on practical demonstrations of renewable energy systems that reduce fossil fuel use while meeting on-farm needs and lowering pollutants such as greenhouse gas emissions. Other energy-related interests include improving the implementation and uptake of energy audits for cropland, buildings, and equipment; testing feedback technologies like smart meters to drive conservation behavior; and evaluating energy savings tied to adaptive management in grazing or cropping systems, including lifecycle comparisons (for example, comparing grazing-based systems to haying systems, and demonstrating long-term no-till rotations that enhance nutrient cycling through soil biology). NRCS also flags the need for planning and decision tools to site small renewable systems in ways that avoid wildlife impacts and an interest in demonstrating low-head hydropower feasibility in settings like small dams or in-stream installations.

Soil Health priorities center on field demonstrations that quantify how practices such as cover crops, crop rotations, tillage choices, and soil amendments change soil chemical, physical, and biological properties, and how those changes connect to nutrient cycling, soil water availability, and plant growth. A specific priority is to measure the rate at which available water holding capacity increases as a function of soil properties, management, and climate. Additional soil health interests include innovative cover crop seeding methods and multi-species mixes to achieve earlier establishment and greater biomass, evaluating how grazing cover crop mixes affects soil and water quality, and comparing long-term no-till plus cover crops against tilled or rotationally tilled systems for nutrient and water outcomes.

Wildlife topics include creating planning tools that maximize habitat value on lands used for biofuel crops, and developing new methods and technologies (including remote sensing) to monitor and evaluate wildlife habitat. Pollinator-related work is a major thread, including developing regional crop-specific guidance on the landscape components needed to support pollinators, demonstrating pollinator habitat seed mixes, documenting benefits to other wildlife from pollinator habitat, and evaluating alternative pest control methods that protect pollinators. Additional wildlife interests include fish screening and passage technologies for native aquatic species, restoring bottomland hardwood ecosystems while maintaining hydrologic connectivity, streambank treatment selection guidance, reducing grouse fence-collision mortality through fence markers, modifying fencing to provide raptor perches, and even exploring technologies that manage cattle spatial behavior without physical fences. There are also topics related to sage grouse habitat planning and the development of measurable habitat metrics that could support species banking frameworks.

The application deadline for this opportunity was Friday, May 18, 2012, by 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, with applications required to be received by the NRCS California State Office by that time. Written applications and supporting materials were directed to Erik Beardsley, CIG Program Specialist, NRCS, at 430 G Street, #4164, Davis, CA 95616-4164, and the announcement noted that electronic submission guidance was available in the full instructions. For program questions, the notice listed Erik Beardsley (phone 530-792-5649, fax 530-792-5790, email Erik.Beardsley@ca.usda.gov) and Alan Forkey, CIG Program Manager (phone 530-792-5653, fax 530-792-5790, email alan.forkey@ca.usda.gov). Additional support for accessing the full announcement was routed through Kimberly Pedersen, Grants Management Specialist (phone 530-792-5678). The funding opportunity is identified as USDA-NRCS-CA-12-003 under CFDA 10.912 (Environmental Quality Incentives Program), with a cost-sharing or matching requirement indicated.

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