Source: USDA, 8/22/11

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the winning proposals for the 2011 Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG). Through CIG, the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is investing nearly $22.5 million in innovative conservation technologies and approaches that address a broad array of existing and emerging natural resource issues.

"We're announcing more than 52 grants today—these are 52 opportunities to help some of America's top agricultural and conservation institutions, foundations and businesses develop unique approaches to enhancing and protecting natural resources on agricultural lands," said Vilsack. "The grants will help to spur creativity and problem solving to benefit conservation-minded farmers and ranchers. Everyone who relies upon the sustainability of our nation's natural resources for clean water, food and fiber, or their way of life, will benefit from these grants."

Besides advancing innovations that address erosion prevention and other natural resource issues, the 2011 CIG award winners will demonstrate the effectiveness of new ways to reduce odors from poultry and livestock operations, reclaim mining lands, develop ecosystem markets and expand solar energy use on farms. Grant winners pay 50 percent of project costs.

Projects will be carried out in 40 states. Eight of the approved grants support development of conservation innovations in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and another eight focus on the Mississippi River Basin.

SureHarvest (AZ, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, ID, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, SC, TX, WA, WI)
$761,820
Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) is a multi-stakeholder initiative to develop a system for measuring sustainable performance throughout the specialty crop supply chain. Renewal funding is requested to continue an unprecedented collaboration amongst the nation’s most influential grower organizations, NGOs and buyers of specialty crop products. The project is making progress toward providing a suite of outcomes-based metrics to enable operators at any point along the supply chain to benchmark, compare, and communicate their own performance in meeting sustainability goals.

Rodale Institute (MD, NC, PA)
$468,519
Nutrient Management in Organic No-Till Systems
In this project, nitrogen-fixing cover crops will be used in combination with dry poultry litter and composted manures to optimize corn grain yield and quality. In addition, this project will monitor nitrogen budgets and weed shifts in the corn phase of the rotation as annual tillage is eliminated and fertilizer application are adjusted within the larger organic grain crop rotation.