USDA Investing $75 million in Partner-Led Projects with Focus on Climate-Smart Ag, Equity in Program Delivery

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September 27, 2021

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(U.S. Department of Agriculture) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will invest nearly $75 million for 15 partner-led projects to address natural resource concerns on private lands. This year, projects funded by the Regional Conservation Partnership Program’s (RCPP) Alternative Funding Arrangements (AFA) focus on climate-smart agriculture and forestry and other conservation priorities as well as improving access for historically underserved producers.

“The AFA component of RCPP is designed for partners who are thinking outside of the box to address some of our most pressing natural resource challenges,” said Terry Cosby, Chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). “RCPP is a testament to the power of partnership. By combining local expertise, partner resources, federal assistance and a shared commitment to conservation we can advance critical priorities and innovative solutions that are key to addressing the climate crisis.”

As part of this year’s project selections, NRCS prioritized projects that supported smart strategies on working lands to help sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Several projects also had concrete plans for engaging producers from historically underserved communities.

Through RCPP, NRCS works with partners to implement projects that demonstrate innovative solutions to advance conservation priorities on the ground. AFA projects are partner-designed and partner-led RCPP projects that propose innovative uses of program funding to achieve conservation benefits. Through AFA projects, lead partners are responsible for contracting directly with eligible farmers, ranchers and other landowners to implement conservation activities on the ground.

2021 Projects

This year’s awarded projects are:

Climate Action and Reforestation in Northern Michigan (Michigan): Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Will work towards afforestation and reforestation goals under the Michigan Climate Action Plan by planting on approximately 16,400 acres. The project could serve as a model for large-scale forest restoration on private lands. Project partners will report on environmental outcomes related to sedimentation, nutrient loading and carbon sequestered.
Enhancing Hawaii's Forests for Climate Resilience (Hawaii): State of Hawaii, Department of Land and Natural Resources. Will focus on landscape-level forest restoration, with locations selected for the highest potential carbon sequestration. Will also improve habitat for critically endangered bird species. Project partners will work with private landowners to plant 210,000 native trees and remove priority invasive plants from 1,650 acres.
Expanding Soil Health Through Carbon Markets RCPP (South Dakota): American Coalition for Ethanol. Will work to create a strong market driver for climate-smart agriculture practices (no-till, cover crops, and nutrient management) for farmers in the grainshed supplying a farmer-owned ethanol facility in South Dakota. Market access would generate an estimated $18.5 million in new revenue annually in the RCPP project area.
Great Plains Grasslands Conservation (South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska): National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Farmers in the region will implement grassland restoration and prescribed grazing systems on more than 1 million acres. An estimated 350,000 acres of grasslands will be enrolled in perpetual conservation easements and project partners plan to estimate the carbon benefits of project activities.
Gunnison River Drought Resiliency and Restoration (Colorado): Trout Unlimited. Will restore wetlands and riparian areas while improving irrigation water management on at least five working ranches in three distinct tributaries to the Gunnison River.
Healing Mine-Scarred Landscapes via Reforestation (Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia): U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities. Will reforest abandoned mine lands in the Appalachian region leveraging private capital and carbon market revenues. Partners will plant 2.5 million trees and the sequestered carbon estimated and sold as carbon offsets. Restored forest ecosystems will also benefit wildlife, including golden-winged warbler and American woodcock.
Illinois Climate-Smart Agricultural Partnership (Illinois): Illinois Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Land and Water Resources. Will establish a Climate-Smart Agricultural Champions program for Illinois producers that will incentivize climate-smart conservation practices and systems with greenhouse gas and water quality benefits. Project partners will also create an Agricultural Climate-Smart Institute to establish educational and training programs for climate-smart systems and practices.
Iowa Partners for Natural Infrastructure (Iowa): Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Will establish a natural infrastructure-based project in priority watersheds within a 35-county area. The project aims to improve outreach and expand landowner participation, particularly among historically underserved landowners and producers. Will work to install 40 constructed/restored wetlands, resulting in conversion of 1,600 acres. to improve water quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase wildlife habitat.
Maryland Clean Water Commerce Outcomes Project (Maryland): Sand County Foundation. Will help scale up the pay-for-performance program and expand access to nutrient reduction funding to more producers, including historically underserved producers. Many of the practices and systems implemented by farmers to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed will have climate co-benefits.
Middle Rio Grande RCPP (New Mexico): Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. Will integrate efficient use of water and enhancement of wildlife habitat. Project partners will use land management, short-term rental and easement activities to help producers increase the resiliency of their operations and adapt to long-term drought conditions and will target project benefits to historically underserved producers.
Pilot Watershed Project (Ohio): Ohio State University. Will establish a pilot watershed in the larger Western Lake Erie Basin to test water quality management strategies with the goal of reducing phosphorus concentrations in local water bodies. The project will improve water quality monitoring infrastructure and incentivize participation through an “agglomeration bonus” that increases payments as more producers implement practices.
Saginaw Bay Watershed ASSET Program (Michigan): The Nature Conservancy. Will increase the permanent adoption of strip till and cover crops in the Saginaw Bay watershed offering producers incentives to support transition to a strip till system, ultimately reducing nutrient and sediment loss to nearby waterways. Partners aim to achieve a 2,000-ton sediment reduction and a 9,000-pound phosphorous reduction.
Shasta Valley Farm and Fish Drought Resilience (California): National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Will support the implementation of a Safe Harbor Agreement designed to improve conditions for threatened coho salmon along 37 stream miles within the Shasta River, a tributary to the Klamath River.
Soil and Water Outcomes 2022-2023 (Illinois, Indiana, Missouri): Illinois Soybean Association. Will replicate and scale up an existing pay-for-performance model piloted in Iowa to improve water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in target watersheds. Farmers will implement conservation practices and systems on 140,000 acres of cropland. RCPP funding will be used to pay for the verified water quality outcomes while partner contributions from Nutrien Ag Solutions and PepsiCo will pay for the verified carbon reductions.
Upper Arkansas Forest Fund (Colorado): National Forest Foundation. Will work to reduce the risk of severe fires in the Upper Arkansas River Watershed by treating a total of 13,500 high-priority acres. Remote sensing and fire modeling tools will help partners report on project outcomes, measured by reduced fire risk and retained carbon storage capacity.

For details on the awarded projects and to view an interactive map, visit the RCPP website.

More about RCPP AFAs

Farmers, ranchers and private forest landowners can participate in RCPP AFA through lead partners and can contact local service centers offsite link image for more information.

First authorized in the 2014 Farm Bill, RCPP has leveraged partner contributions of more than $1 for every $1 invested by USDA, resulting in nearly $3 billion collectively invested in natural resource conservation on private lands. Partners are expected to offer value-added contributions to amplify the impact of RCPP funding in an amount equal or greater to the USDA investment. RCPP projects range from a minimum of $250,000 to a maximum of $10 million.

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is engaged in a whole-of-government effort to combat the climate crisis and conserve and protect our nation’s lands, biodiversity and natural resources including our soil, air and water. Through conservation practices and partnerships, USDA aims to enhance economic growth and create new streams of income for farmers, ranchers, producers and private foresters. Successfully meeting these challenges will require USDA and our agencies to pursue a coordinated approach alongside USDA stakeholders, including State, local and Tribal governments.

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov. READ MORE

USDA ANNOUNCES MAJOR INVESTMENT IN ACE AND PARTNERS’ EFFORT TO UTILIZE CLIMATE-SMART PRACTICES TO SECURE MARKET ACCESS TO CLEAN FUEL MARKETS FOR FARMERS AND ETHANOL PRODUCERS (American Coalition for Ethanol)

USDA Invests in Effort to Secure Clean Fuel Market Access For Farmers and Ethanol Producers (GrainNet)

USDA funds ACE-led project to help farmers access LCFS markets (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

USDA Invests in Using Climate Smart Ag for Low Carbon Fuel (AgNewsWire)

H2Ohio Plan Recognizes Agriculture’s Contributions to Sustainable Goals (Office of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine)

Companies’ Climate Promises Face a Wild Card: Farmers (North America Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance)

Excerpt from American Coalition for Ethanol: Today (September 24, 2021), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a $7.5 million investment in the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE)-led Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) project to secure farmers premier access to low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) markets based on their adoption of USDA climate-smart agricultural practices.

ACE, together with RCPP partners South Dakota Corn Growers Association, Dakota Ethanol, South Dakota State University, Cultivating Conservation, and collaborator Sandia National Labs, will use the USDA financial assistance to compensate farmers for adopting climate-smart practices that sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and improve soil health. The partnership will pair USDA technical assistance with significant partner financial and in-kind contributions to quantify the resulting soil health and GHG benefits, correlate them with existing models, and develop a non-proprietary verification system. This data will then be used to secure farmer access to clean fuel or LCFS markets for the first time based on the GHG benefits of USDA climate-smart practices.

“We share the Biden administration’s goal of reaching net-zero GHG emissions by 2050,” said Brian Jennings, ACE CEO. “Ethanol can reach net-negative carbon intensity by crediting biofuel crops grown with climate-smart farming practices in clean fuel markets via carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and continued carbon reduction improvements at individual ethanol facilities.”

“USDA’s investment in our project to validate the benefits of climate-smart practices in further reducing corn ethanol’s carbon footprint is a vote of confidence in the role farmers can play in reaching net-zero emissions by 2050,” Jennings added. “Further, this project will provide a prototype for how clean fuel policies can reward farmers for climate-smart practices that reduce the overall carbon intensity of corn ethanol.”

According to Michigan State University’s GHG calculator that uses USDA data to compare GHG reductions from different cropping systems, changes to be incentivized in the new RCPP from conventional tillage to no-till would sequester an additional 91,000 metric tons of GHG emissions per year in the project area. This is comparable to removing 20,000 cars from the road. If these reductions were credited in existing mandatory clean fuel markets, such as the California LCFS, farmers could generate over $10 million a year in new revenue.

“The South Dakota Corn Growers Association is proud to partner on this project,” said Scott Stahl, President of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association. “The growth of the ethanol industry over the past 15 years has been critical to the economic health of South Dakota farmers and rural communities. While the Renewable Fuel Standard continues to play an important role, South Dakota Corn Growers has invested significant resources analyzing the economic benefits that farmers could reap through new clean fuel market access,” Stahl commented. “For example, farmers within the RCPP project area could secure an additional 39 cents per bushel for their corn if GHG reductions were credited in the California LCFS marketplace for climate-smart practices.”

ACE and RCPP partner Dakota Ethanol have worked extensively with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and California regulators to help them better understand ethanol’s climate benefits.

“The market premium we receive by selling our ethanol into the California LCFS program is a significant driver for making several process improvements to reduce our natural gas and electricity usage,” said Scott Mundt, Dakota Ethanol CEO. “In addition to the gains we can make within the facility, properly structured clean fuel policies can incentivize significant GHG contributions from the farmers who supply our corn. Compensating the 500 farmers in Dakota Ethanol’s grain shed to lower the carbon intensity of their corn production through adoption of climate-smart conservation practices would result in significant climate and economic benefits.”

South Dakota State University will collaborate with the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratory to quantify the GHG contributions made by RCPP participating farmers. Further, SDSU will work with the larger partnership to establish a non-proprietary verification system that will allow farmers and ethanol producers to fully benefit from LCFS markets.

“SDSU has been working in the field of soil carbon for over 30 years and is excited to partner on this project,” said David Clay, SDSU’s Professor of Soil Science. “SDSU has long been a leader in studying the environmental and economic benefits of changes in production practices. We strongly believe this RCPP will expand our work to meaningfully scale the adoption of climate-smart farming practices throughout the biofuel producing regions of the United States.”

Cultivating Conservation brings years of experience in leveraging USDA conservation programs to address critical environmental challenges to benefit farmers and natural resources and is partnering in the development and deployment of this project.

“This project is critical to gaining regulators’ acceptance of the climate benefits generated by farmers through climate-smart farming practices,” said Lisa Moore, Cultivating Conservation’s founding member. “Equally important is the role this project will play in demonstrating to farmers the economic value of clean fuel policies. We greatly appreciate USDA’s leadership in helping us make this case to farmers.” READ MORE

Excerpt from North America Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance: Major corporations such as PepsiCo, Cargill, Walmart, and General Mills are pledging to support regenerative farming and other forms of climate-friendly agriculture on more than 70 million acres within a decade, and are working with farmers to get it done. It’s not an easy process. Many farmers have already made strides that direction, but many more have not. And the reluctant ones, as well as early adapters like Ray Gaesser, chair of NACSAA’s Enabling Policies team, worry that incentives are not in line with farmers’ needs

They also note that adopting broad, new practices cannot be done from one season to the next, and that farmers need to be compensated for possible yield losses over a multi-year transition period during which they monitor progress and make adjustments. They also suggest possible premium prices for crops grown in a climate-friendly manner – something that food and beverage industry surveys show most consumers are not willing to pay.

Another uncertainty is the emerging market for carbon sequestration – paying farmers for the carbon captured in their soil. But the accumulation of carbon in the soil could take years, and it is difficult and costly to measure. For farmers, entering contracts now for carbon sequestration is like designing a new combine while you’re in the middle of harvest. READ MORE