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.
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Showing 621 - 630 of 1802 projects
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
University of Montana
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MT
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2014
Ecological site descriptions (ESDs) describe the ability of a site to produce and support particular types and amounts of vegetation based on soil, climate and topography. State-and-transition models (STMs) describe changes in vegetation and soils within an ecological site in response to management and other factors. Livestock producers and local natural resource staff can play an important role in the development of STMs because they have knowledge of historic management and other factors potentially impacting plant communities at these sites. This project will incorporate information from local natural resource professionals and livestock producers into STM development. Ecological sites can also act as a valuable framework for assessing wildlife Habitat characteristics; however, specific wildlife Habitat needs are not currently addressed in ESDs. Birds can serve as useful indicators of ecological sites because they are easily identifiable and frequently monitored. In Montana, several bird species associated with rangeland ecological sites are species of conservation concern (SOC), including greater sage- grouse, Sprague’s pipit, and long-billed curlew. The project will link ESDs and STMs with bird Habitat requirements, providing an innovative approach to understanding how these tools can be used to guide conservation and management of wildlife species in conjunction with livestock production.
The National Grazing Lands Coalition
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TX
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2014
Livestock producers should perceive themselves as a grass farmer and not just a livestock producer. The most successful producers look at themselves a step further, as soil managers. This project will conduct outreach, education and demonstration activities on how prescribed grazing impacts pasture and range productivity, conservation and soil health using rainfall simulators. The use of the rainfall simulator will help historically underserved producers to visualize and comprehend the potential for greater rainfall infiltration and lesser rainfall runoff on grazing lands with a high level of grazing management.
University of Vermont and State Agricultural College
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VT
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2014
Soil compaction can be a significant yield-limitation and conservation concern. Compacted soils often result in poor drainage, increased runoff, reduced soil aeration and decreased root penetration and subsequent plant-access to available soil moisture. The compaction problem is common on many farms, especially in cool, humid regions of the country with a relatively short growing season. To remediate deep compaction, producers often employ deep tillage, or subsoiling, in an effort to loosen soil to reduce bulk density and allow for deeper root penetration and improved percolation of soil water. Management practices that involve less soil disturbance, such as cover cropping and no-till, can also help remediate and prevent compaction by improving overall soil health and "bio-drilling." Furthermore, soil moisture status within the soil profile, and its susceptibility to compaction or fracture, is commonly assumed without reliable qualitative or quantitative indicators. Demonstrating user-friendly and inexpensive on-farm soil moisture monitoring, and its meaningfulness to compaction prevention, is needed by farmers working to improve soil health. This project will demonstrate how soil health, and specifically structure, available water capacity, and ability to transmit water, are influenced by management practices intended to alleviate compaction.
Louisiana State University Agriculture Center
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LA
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2014
Ecology concepts indicate that pastures of high species diversity can be more functional and potentially more productive than those of monocultures or simple two-species mixtures. Short term experiments have typically not confirmed superior forage or grazing livestock production of such complex mixtures. This project will introduce the concept of such multiple-species pasture mixtures for use in the southeastern U.S. and demonstrate realistic short-term beneficial effects. A complex pasture mixture of cool-season species on a commercial beef cattle operation will be established by over-seeding warm-season perennial grass pasture in October. Establishment and production of this mixed stand will be monitored with pasture areas which naturally develop differing stand composition used as reference areas to compare effects of species complexity on measures of soil health. Cumulative effects of diverse species mixtures in repeated years on subsequent warm-season grass productivity and soil characteristics will be assessed. Environmental effects anticipated from diverse pasture species, compared to nitrogen-fertilized grass monocultures, include biological nitrogen fixation, enhanced sub-soil nutrient uptake, increased nutrient uptake efficiency, reduced fertilizer requirements, reduced weed pressure, enhanced pollinator Habitat, increased soil microbial biomass and diversity and increased soil organic matter providing carbon sequestration.
The Regents of the University of California
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CA
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2014
As 30 percent of U.S. food crops depend on honey bee pollination, the implications of ongoing declines are of growing concern, particularly as Colony Collapse Disorder continues to claim over 30 percent of managed honey bee hives per year. Recent research has begun to explore the potential of native bees to supplement pollination services. However, more is needed to quantify the impacts of native bee farming in diverse agricultural systems and regions, identify methods to encourage the best native bees for specific crops and engage farmers in implementation. This project supports an innovative, farmer-initiated effort that aligns with a number of NRCS goals for establishing, monitoring, and evaluating pollinator Habitat, and educating and engaging agricultural producers in pollinator conservation.