Project Search
Since its inception in 2004, CIG has funded hundreds of projects, boosting natural resource conservation while helping producers improve the health of their operations for the future. Use this tool to search for CIG projects based on any of the criteria listed below.
CIG projects from 2004-2009 may be missing information in the following categories: Resource Concern (specific), Conservation Practice, Production/Use.
Showing 611 - 620 of 1760 projects
The Curators of the University of Missouri
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MO
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2014
Energy (propane) used to maintain a comfortable environment for flocks is the major cost to the poutry production farmer, and given the increasing and unpredictable cost of propane is a significant economic risk for the poultry farmer. This project will verify proven technology for recovering the Energy in the ventilation air exiting a poultry production barn via an innovative waste heat recovery system. This heat recovery system accomplishes what has not been successfully done before – operating automatically, labor free, clog-free, and corrosion resistant, under conditions involving litter, dust and features, because of the programmed self-cleaning system. The system transfers the waste heat from in the exhaust air from poultry house to pre-heat the fresh air on entering the house. The field testing of the system in broiler houses has shown a 40-50 percent reduction of propane consumption. Successful adoption and implementation requires performance verification, manufacturing protocol process development and development of a business plan.
First Nations Development Institute
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CO
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2014
A development freeze (preventing the erection of buildings, homes and community infrastructure) on lands disputed between the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe persisted from 1966 until 1999 when it was repealed. Only now are these communities beginning to initiate new development in this area that depends heavily on farming and ranching for livelihoods. This project will build on First Nations’ work with Navajo producers started in 2011 with funding from the USDA Office of Advocacy and Outreach and others. These efforts revealed the need to transition first steps in conservation planning from USDA NRCS to the producers by developing a conservation process for Navajo producers in a manner that will balance traditional ecological stewardship with NRCS’ requirements. 12,000 conservation plans on the Navajo Nation are stymied by the logjam created by lack of professional resources. This project will develop a conservation planning process, led by Navajo livestock producers on the Navajo Reservation, which will be offered as a template to USDA NRCS, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Navajo Nation. The conservation planning process could have the potential to remedy the issue of pending conservation plans at the producer level on the Navajo Nation and could be replicated in other Navajo communities and by other tribes.
Western Riverside County Agriculture Coalition
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CA
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2014
A water quality trading (WQT) feasibility assessment was recently completed for agricultural operators in the San Jacinto River Basin as a tool to implement the Lake Elsinore/Canyon Lake nutrient total maximum daily load (TMDL). The final WQT feasibility assessment concluded that farmers will benefit from trading to meet allowable nutrient loads assigned to agricultural sources through the TMDL, with additional demand generated through Conditional Waiver for Agricultural Dischargers requirements. There now is a need to develop a nonpoint source-to-nonpoint source WQT program for agricultural operators in the San Jacinto River watershed and pilot such a program. This project seeks to develop and pilot WQT program rules and infrastructure to support nonpoint source-to-nonpoint source trading in the San Jacinto River watershed using a stakeholder-based approach. The objectives are to facilitate key stakeholders through the WQT program design phase and to test the WQT program’s ability to effect quantifiable load reduction goals, with the ultimate goal of implementing the WQT program in high priority areas to help achieve the TMDL nutrient load reductions and provide new tools to support other nonpoint source-to-nonpoint source WQT approaches across the country.
Pinchot Institute for Conservation
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DC
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2014
Unsustainable forest management and outright loss to development are among the great conservation challenges facing the U.S. Approximately four acres of forest and open space are lost per minute, mostly from family woodland owners. For many their land is their most valuable asset to draw from when sudden financial demands arise. This situation is compounded by the fact that a majority of family woodland owners are older than 65, placing health care at the center of decisions about the family forest. These conditions limit the ability of family forests to deliver sustainable goods and services including the sequestration of atmospheric carbon. Until now forest carbon projects have been mostly implemented by large landowners as a financial mechanism to support conservation and sustainable forest management on their own property. Carbon projects have remained inaccessible to family landowners with contract terms judged too restrictive and credit protocols misaligned with the economics of family ownership. This project will address these issues along with concerns over health related expenses, resulting in the first aggregated (multiple landowners) forest carbon credit transaction in the U.S. to involve family forest landowners in a meaningful way. The project will directly benefit 20 - 25 EQIP eligible landowners on about 3,500 acres in Oregon; setting the stage for broad replication throughout the U.S. through the innovative "conservation for health care" incentive model, family woodland owners will meet their health related expenses not through timber liquidation or land sale, but by monetizing carbon credits generated through sustainable forestry.
The University of Tennessee
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TN
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2014
In the Southeast, tall-fescue is the primary forage base grazed by cow-calf producers, which means limited forage production during the summer and winter months. Frequent short-term droughts during the summer can result in overgrazed pastures and stand loss. Therefore, many producers in the Mid-South have begun incorporating warm-season grasses into their programs to reduce the impact of drought and overgrazing. During the winter months, cold temperatures result in poor forage growth. Due to their low nutritional quality once dormant, native warm-season grasses (NWSG) are not being utilized during fall and winter grazing in beef production in the Mid-South and Southeast. This lack of expertise in managing beef cattle on low-quality forages leads to only grazing NWSG for approximately 90 days during the summer, resulting in hesitation of landowners to establish and utilize NWSG in their livestock operations. This project will demonstrate and educate producers, farm managers and the general public on the benefits of using NWSGs (i.e., switchgrass and/or indiangrass/big bluestem combo) in a conservative, low-input grazing management program that will extend the grazing season and decrease the need for feeding harvested feedstuffs. Side-by-side demonstrations will be used to monitor cattle performance, forage quality and quantity, soil health and input costs to demonstrate cost-effective and strategic grazing management for livestock producers. Altogether, this demonstration will educate producers on effectively use stockpiled NWSGs in their grazing management plans their livestock operation and production goals while reducing expensive feed costs and improving soil health. This information on management of NWSGs for winter grazing, heifer production and economic implications will be delivered to educators and industry supporters with in-service trainings, directly to beef cattle producers at field days and beef and forage associations, and through a web-based reference library of written materials and videos for easy access and increased audience.
Terra Global Capital, LLC
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CA
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2014
While the greenhouse gas accounting methodologies and calibration of biochemical models have been developed to support verification of emission reductions from low emission rice practices in the environmental markets, the costs for growers to supply these emission reductions is far too high to promote adoption of these practices and reward growers. The costs to growers to meet the on-going monitoring and verification under market standards is uneconomic due to two reasons; the recurring costs due to the lack of integration of remote/sensor based monitoring data into existing GHG monitoring systems and the insufficient number of farmers currently participating. Simply, with current technology and low level of grower participation, the costs to produce verified emission reductions are greater than the financial benefits provided by environmental markets. These implementation costs can be substantially lowered by aggregating growers within collaborative projects and integrating efficient remote/sensor monitoring methods into the GHG measurement process. This project will address these adoption barriers by expanding an existing Grower Management and Environmental Measurement technology platform to support Mid-South growers and to integrate proven sensor/remote data into to monitoring process to reduce costs of verification.
University of Idaho
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ID
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2014
Sagebrush dominated ecosystems cover vast areas of the West (770,000 square miles), providing Habitat for many wildlife species that require sagebrush to complete their lifecycle. Species include the pronghorn antelope, pygmy rabbit, sage thrasher, sage sparrow, Brewer’s sparrow, sagebrush lizard and the greater sage‐grouse which is proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. One of the greatest threats to sagebrush ecosystems is wildland fire which engulfs increasingly large areas of sagebrush converting these shrub‐dominated ecosystems to grasslands. Wildland fire in sagebrush ecosystems severely degrades Habitat value for sagebrush obligate species and makes areas susceptible to soil erosion and invasion by exotic plants. Land management strategies to reduce the extent and severity of wildfires require integrated and landscape‐scale approaches. Targeted livestock grazing is considered a practice that can alter and reduce wildfire fuel loads in sagebrush ecosystems. The time is right to summarize anecdotal evidence, conduct field demonstrations, develop grazing guidelines for fuels management and empower land managers to apply targeted grazing as a tool to reduce the impacts of wildfire on wildlife Habitat in sagebrush ecosystems. The anticipated environmental outcome is widespread adaptation and implementation of innovative targeted grazing practices to manage wildfire in sagebrush steppe for wildlife Habitat conservation.
National Corn Growers Association
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MO
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2014
Agriculture currently comprises 55 percent of habitable land and 66 percent of annual fresh water usage and per capita land and water availability will decrease with increased population growth. Decreases in access to arable land place additional emphasis on the need for improved cropping system efficiency while improving environmental resources such as soil health and water quality. In the U.S., the major crop production regions facing the greatest challenges include the Mississippi River Basin, the Great Lakes Basin and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. This project will address the need for improved soil health and water quality by developing recommendations to farmers on a variety of soil management practices aimed at improving productivity, profitability and environmental outcomes; increasing adoption of those recommendations beyond the network of demonstration farms; increasing the visibility and importance of sound soil management and agricultural sustainability to crop producers and the general public and quantifying the economic impacts (to individual crop producers and in aggregate) of adopting various practices intended to improve soil health.
Kansas State University
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KS
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2014
Factors such as growing global population and climate variability are increasing demand for water. Looking into the future, agriculture, the dominant fresh water user around the world will be required to produce more food with less water. This increase in food production is expected to come primarily from irrigated agriculture. In the United States Great Plains, producers are already experiencing problems of limited water supplies for irrigation due to Ogallala Aquifer depletion. Economies of many rural communities in the Central Plains rely heavily on irrigated agriculture, including confined cattle feeding operations, beef packing and agro-input businesses. However, with declining water supplies the future of irrigated agriculture in the Great Plains is uncertain. The goal when working with limited water is to capture and store every possible source of water in the production system. In the Great Plains these sources of water include rainfall, snowfall and irrigation water. Reduced tillage coupled with residue management have been proven in several studies to increase available soil water by reducing soil water loss from tillage operations, reduction in soil water evaporation and enhancing infiltration. This project will leverage advances in sensor and information technology to demonstrate proven benefits of reduced tillage on soil water storage using physical and virtual on-farm demonstrations.
North Carolina State University
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NC
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2014
Beef cattle contribute a major portion of pasture-based livestock production in the US and these systems support the nations single largest agricultural commodity. About 30 percent of the total cow population (8.7 million head) is in the Southeast, Mid-South and Mid-Atlantic regions. Beef cattle in the region are typically managed in low input systems that result in poor pasture condition and can have negative environmental impacts including loss of vegetative cover, soil compaction, nutrient concentration, erosion and nutrient loss through runoff and direct deposition of manure into surface water. Many best management practices, such as stream exclusion, have been developed to address these concerns. While these approaches are generally beneficial, their installation in the absence of a good forage system plan and improved producer management skills limits their overall benefit. Because of high input costs and the value of cattle the interest by beef producers in thoughtful pasture and forage management is increasing. This project will combine nutrient distribution mapping, grazing season extension using stockpiled forages, strategic use of annuals in locations of high soil nutrient concentrations, emerging concepts about soil health and active on-farm educational workshops featuring demonstrations of these important practices and testimonials from farm owners who have had the practices implemented for multiple years. The educational activities will build on already active programs in the participating states, resulting in an improved understanding of the benefits of using annual Cover Crops in these systems and how the use of mixed species Cover Crops compares to single species.