The specialty crop ag community was excited to gather recently in Salinas for the second edition of FIRA USA. The event featured the latest robotics and automation technologies on the market for fruit, vegetable and tree nut growers. Watch this special video presentation showcasing new technologies from several innovative companies featured at this event.
Category: Technology
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The VINE Announces Call for Agri-Tech Startups to Apply for Field-Trial Support
The VINE, an initiative by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, is now accepting applications for its VINE Validation of Innovation Program. The program aims to support innovation in the agri-tech sector, particularly in climate-resilient solutions for California food systems.
Made possible with support from a UC Climate Action grant, the program is inviting startups to apply, with a focus on providing comprehensive support for field trials – a critical stage for any agri-tech venture.
“Field trials are vital for validating new innovations in the agri-tech sector,” said Gabe Youtsey, chief innovation officer with UC ANR and founder of The VINE. “The VINE VIP aims to provide a supportive environment for carrying out these essential tests, bridging the gap between innovative concepts and real-world application.”
Elif Ceylan, co-founder of OpenGate Partners and head of the VINE VIP, also stressed the importance of field trials.
“Field trials serve as a crucial phase where promising ideas either succeed or require adjustment,” Ceylan said. “We are committed to prioritizing this stage to ensure the effectiveness and relevance of emerging agri-tech solutions.”
The VINE VIP offers more than field trials. It provides a supportive ecosystem for startups, including industry connections, access to a broad network of farmers and experts, comprehensive validation results and market entry support. The program is a unique accelerator that pairs startups with project partners in the agri-tech industry, facilitating Proof of Concept projects and commercialization trials for industry-defined challenges in California agriculture.
By connecting startups with farmers, academics and industry experts, the program aims to validate, advance, adopt and amplify innovative technologies, reducing technological risks and accelerating sales through its extensive industry network.
Startups interested in joining the VINE VIP can apply until Sept. 16, 2023. Detailed information about the program and the application process is available on The VINE’s website at thevine.io/vip.
About The VINE:
The VINE is an initiative of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, dedicated to fostering agriculture, food, and biotech innovation in California. Our mission is to support industries and entrepreneurs while promoting technology innovation and commercialization for sustainable and equitable food systems. We connect entrepreneurs with public and private sector resources, encourage collaborations to address industry challenges, and promote regional capacity for global innovation as an economic opportunity.UC Agriculture and Natural Resources brings the power of UC to all 58 California counties. Through research and Cooperative Extension in agriculture, natural resources, nutrition, economic and youth development, our mission is to improve the lives of all Californians. Learn more at ucanr.edu and support our work at donate.ucanr.edu.
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Lab-Grown Meat’s Carbon Footprint Potentially Worse Than Retail Beef
Lab-grown meat, which is cultured from animal cells, is often thought to be more environmentally friendly than beef because it’s predicted to need less land, water and greenhouse gases than raising cattle. But in a preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that lab-grown or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.
Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?
“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” said lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. “If this product continues to be produced using the “pharma” approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”
The scientists defined the global warming potential as the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced. The study found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using these purified media is four to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.
A more climate friendly burger in the future?
One of the goals of the industry is to eventually create lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures without the use of expensive and energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes.
Under that scenario, researchers found cultured meat is much more environmentally competitive, but with a wide range. Cultured meat’s global warming potential could be between 80% lower to 26% above that of conventional beef production, they calculate. While these results are more promising, the leap from “pharma to food” still represents a significant technical challenge for system scale-up.
“Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef. It’s not a panacea,” said corresponding author Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. “It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media.”
Even the most efficient beef production systems reviewed in the study outperform cultured meat across all scenarios (both food and pharma), suggesting that investments to advance more climate-friendly beef production may yield greater reductions in emissions more quickly than investments in cultured meat.
Developing the technology that would allow the leap from “pharma to food” is among the goals of the UC Davis Cultivated Meat Consortium, a cross-disciplinary group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and educators researching cultivated meat. Other goals are to establish and evaluate cell lines that could be used to grow meat and find ways to create more structure in cultured meat.
Risner said even if lab-based meat doesn’t result in a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the endeavor.
“It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” said Risner. “My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”
Other authors include Yoonbin Kim and Justin Siegel of UC Davis and Cuong Nguyen of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The research was funded by the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health and the National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research grant. — By Amy Quinton, UC Davis
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New Tool Calculates Crop Rotation Costs, Benefits for California Rice Growers
Due to severe water shortages, rice acres planted in California plummeted by 37% from 2021 to 2022, according to numbers released recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. But now, thanks to University of California researchers, growers have a new tool they could potentially use to cope with droughts and other environmental and socioeconomic changes.
A crop rotation calculator provides farmers in the Sacramento Valley – where 97% of California rice is grown – with projections on the economic impacts of transitioning their fields from rice into four less water-intensive crops: dry beans, safflower, sunflower or tomato.
The tool represents an initial attempt to address the dearth of research on rice crop rotation in California, while giving growers much-needed, science-backed data on whether the practice would make financial sense for their farms.
“I believe more rice growers could benefit from the many advantages of crop rotation, and this new tool is an excellent first step by the UC to help growers look into making such a transition,” said George Tibbitts, a Colusa County rice farmer.
Funded in part by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, through the Western Integrated Pest Management Center, the calculator is a collaborative effort of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, UC Integrated Pest Management and UC Davis to fill a major gap in rice research.
“I do think there are people who would have tried rotational crops in the past, but it’s just so unknown, we didn’t have anything we could give them and be like, ‘Hey, this is the recommended crop for your area,’” said Whitney Brim-DeForest, UC Cooperative Extension rice advisor. “This tool gives them some preliminary data they can use to make a more informed decision.”
Crop rotation a potential boon to growers, environment
UC Davis doctoral student Sara Rosenberg and Brim-DeForest, alongside other members of the UC rice research team, surveyed California rice growers in 2020 on their experiences with and perceptions of crop rotation. Although the practice is rare in the Sacramento Valley (only an estimated 10% of rice acreage is under rotation), some farmers reported benefits that could be crucial in a water-scarce future.
“From having conversations with growers who do rotate, one of the biggest benefits they describe is their flexibility in times of drought, where they can keep producing on their land when there isn’t enough water to grow rice,” said Rosenberg, noting that crop rotation could be one option in a “toolbox” of strategies that growers also use to manage fertilizer price shocks, herbicide resistance and other challenges.
Given the dearth of quantitative data on crop rotation in rice, more studies are needed on the practice in California, according to Whitney Brim-DeForest, UCCE rice advisor. Photo by Evett Kilmartin During the ongoing drought that caused about half of California’s rice acreage to go fallow in 2022, Tibbitts said his water district was only able to allocate 10% of his usual allotment.
“With such a limited supply, it would have been tough to grow even one field of rice,” he said. “But it was enough water so that we could rent two of our fields to a tomato grower – tomatoes under drip irrigation use much less water than a flooded field of rice. We were also able to grow one field of sunflowers, which doesn’t need any irrigation at all if you can plant the seeds into existing moisture in the early spring.”
While drought is one motivating factor to rotate crops, Tibbitts said that on principle he avoids planting all his acreage in rice and “not have all (his) eggs in one basket.”
“My primary motivation for rotating into and out of rice has been to help with weed and disease control,” he added. “Crop rotation is a primary tool of IPM (integrated pest management), and I feel it has helped me greatly over the years.”
According to Brim-DeForest, rotating cropping systems can allow for the use of different weed control tools, such as different herbicide modes of action, and different cultural controls such as tillage, reducing the chances of selecting for herbicide-resistant weeds – an increasingly pervasive issue in rice systems.
Rosenberg noted that, in some situations – and depending on the crops in rotation – the practice can also disrupt the life cycles of insects and diseases and potentially improve soil structure and increase nutrient cycling and uptake, which may lead to a reduction in inputs such as fertilizer.
More research on crop diversification needed in rice systems
The benefits of crop rotation for California rice growers are largely theoretical and anecdotal, however, so the UC rice team is looking to add evidence-based grounding through a variety of studies – from looking at long-term effects on soil health indicators to testing various cover crops (which may deliver some benefits of diversification, similar to those of rotation).
In addition to crop rotation in rice, researchers are also studying cover cropping, which may deliver some benefits of diversification, says UC Davis doctoral student Sara Rosenberg. “In California, there is no quantitative data on crop rotation in rice,” said Brim-DeForest. “You’d think after a hundred and some odd years (of UC agricultural research), all the research would have been done, but, no – there’s tons still to do.”
Through interviews with Sacramento Valley growers, researchers found that cost was frequently mentioned as a barrier to trying crop rotation, along with incompatible soil conditions and a lack of equipment, knowledge and experience.
To help clarify those economic uncertainties, the new calculator tool allows growers to enter baseline information specific to their circumstances – whether they rent or own their own land, whether they contract out the work to plant the rotational crop, and other factors. The calculator then generates potential costs and benefits of staying in rice versus rotating to dry beans, safflower, sunflower or tomato, during the first year and in an “average” year for those crops.
The upfront costs of rotation during “year one” can be daunting. Therefore, the tool only focuses on a short-term profitability perspective. Researchers are currently working on longer term modeling for crop rotation – incorporating the possibility of reduced herbicide use over time, and under different crop yield scenarios, for example – that could significantly change the growers’ calculus.
“You could actually be profitable in the long term, whereas this first, short glimpse is showing you a negative,” said Rosenberg.
In addition, thanks to collaboration with the UC IPM team, the rice rotation calculator is an evolving tool that will be continually improved based on user feedback and additional data. Brim-DeForest also said that it could be adapted to other cropping systems – for example, alfalfa going into another rotational crop.
The rice calculator tool can be found at: https://rice-rotation-calculator.ipm.ucanr.edu/.
Other contributors to the project include Bruce Linquist, Luis Espino, Ellen Bruno, Kassim Al-Khatib and Michelle Leinfelder-Miles of UCCE; Cameron Pittelkow of UC Davis; as well as UC IPM team members Chinh Lam, Tunyalee Martin and Hanna Zorlu; and the California rice growers and industry members who participated in the research. — By Mike Hsu, UCANR
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources brings the power of UC to all 58 California counties. Through research and Cooperative Extension in agriculture, natural resources, nutrition, economic and youth development, our mission is to improve the lives of all Californians. Learn more at ucanr.edu and support our work at donate.ucanr.edu.
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Digging Deeper into Climate Change Data
As the world’s leading agricultural export market in the nation, California has a lot at stake in the climate crisis. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, California’s agricultural production is valued at $50 billion with exports totaling $20.8 billion in 2020. The ever-changing weather patterns that climate change is causing could lead to significant farming challenges. Fortunately, California farmers now have a web-based tool to help them navigate through difficult conditions due to climate change.
“There are other types of these tools around the United States that are kind of region-specific for the commodities and those regions, but we didn’t have one in California,” said Steven Ostoja, director for the USDA California Climate Hub. “Essentially CalAgroClimate is a free online compendium, if you will, of tools and resources to help growers or crop consultants make better decisions about what they might need to do or want to do to address the concerns of climate change.”
CalAgroClimate is a web-based and mobile-friendly decision support system that translates high-resolution gridded weather data and forecast information into decision support tools designed to provide both location and crop-specific information for managing risks. It was developed by the USDA California Climate Hub and the University of California Cooperative Extension.
CalAgroClimate currently has four tools available for users: heat advisory, frost advisory, crop phenology and pest advisory. The heat and frost advisory tools work in similar ways: users are given a map where they can select certain locations and temperature thresholds based on specific crops. Temperature thresholds for heat range from 90 F to 100 F while frost thresholds range from 35 F to 28 F. Farmers are also able to determine heat and frost risk for the next 7 days for a given location, including the number of consecutive days with temperatures above or below thresholds for selected crops.
The crop phenology tool is used for crop-specific and location-specific purposes, where the user can monitor growing degree accumulations and estimates when the crops reach certain growing stages. It can even advise users about past crop developments and compares growing seasons from previous years. The pest advisory tool helps users track projections based on past generations of pests and diseases using temperature and heat unit accumulations.
Ostoja said he believes CalAgroClimate can provide stakeholders with science-based data to help reduce the risk associated with climate change.
“Ultimately, our hope is that there is a reduction in indemnity and crop insurance claims. CalAgroClimate provides users a means to evaluate risks and make decisions to protect against economic and bottom-line losses due to weather and climate events,” he said. “What we’re really hoping to do is just let people have that comfort, knowing that they’re able to make decisions that are based on the best available science that’s readily available and that’s accurate, so that they feel more comfortable and confident.”
Ostoja and his team continue to search for ways to make CalAgroClimate even more useful for its users. They are collecting more user feedback, improving the user interface, and holding workshops for potential users. Ostoja said that they also hope to add a user feedback tool to the website soon to allow users to share their feedback, impressions and suggestions.
“This spring we also plan to take CalAgroClimate to do focused workshops with specific groups to both facilitate and better understand this tool,” he said.
USDA Climate Hubs were created in 2014 to develop and deliver science-based, region-specific information and technologies to agricultural and natural resource managers that enable climate-informed decision-making, and to provide access to assistance to implement those decisions. — By Andrew Casas, USDA-ARS Office of Communications
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New USDA Funding to Promote Expansion of High-Speed Internet in Rural Areas
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced the availability of $20 million to deliver broadband technical assistance resources for rural communities, and to support the development and expansion of broadband cooperatives.
USDA is offering the funding under the new Broadband Technical Assistance Program. The program supports technical assistance projects such as conducting feasibility studies, completing network designs and developing broadband financial assistance applications. Funding is also available to help organizations access federal resources, and to conduct data collection and reporting.
“USDA is committed to making sure that people, no matter where they live, have access to high-speed internet. That’s how you grow the economy – not just in rural communities, but across the nation,” said USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small. “USDA is partnering with small towns, local utilities and cooperatives, and private companies to increase access to this critical service which in turn boosts opportunity and helps build bright futures.”
This initiative is made possible through President Biden’s historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provides $65 billion to expand access and lower costs of high-speed internet.. This initiative has been designed to work in conjunction with other high-speed internet programs to meet President Biden’s goal to connect every community in America with affordable, reliable, high-speed internet.Today’s announcement reflects the goals of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to rebuild the economy from the middle-out and bottom-up.
USDA encourages applicants to consider projects that will advance the following key priorities:
- Assisting rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and through improved infrastructure;
- Ensuring all rural residents have equitable access to USDA Rural Development (RD) programs and benefits from RD funded projects; and
- Reducing climate pollution and increasing resilience to the impacts of climate change through economic support to rural communities.
Applicants must choose one of the following funding categories:
- Technical Assistance Providers: Applicants must propose to deliver broadband technical assistance that will benefit rural communities. Up to $7.5 million is available. The minimum award is $50,000. The maximum is $1 million.
- Technical Assistance Recipients: Applicants must be the recipients of the broadband technical assistance. Up to $7.5 million is available. The minimum award is $50,000. The maximum is $250,000.
- Projects Supporting Cooperatives: Applicants must propose projects that support the establishment or growth of broadband cooperatives that will benefit rural communities. Up to $5 million is available. The minimum award is $50,000. The maximum is $1 million.
USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities, create jobs and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans in rural areas. This assistance supports infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural, tribal and high-poverty areas. For more information, visit www.rd.usda.gov.
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Artificial Light at Night Aids Caterpillar Predators
To save caterpillars, turn off your porch light.
Moderate levels of artificial light at night – like the fixture illuminating your backyard – bring more caterpillar predators and reduce the chance that these lepidoptera larvae grow up to become moths and serve as food for larger prey.
This new Cornell research was published March 8 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
The Cornell scientists placed more than 550 soft clay caterpillar models – lifelike replicas – in a forest setting to ascertain how the mockups were attacked and hunted by predators, compared to a control group.
“We measured predation rates on the clay caterpillars – which look like the real thing,” said John Deitsch ’22, who conducted the research as his undergraduate honors thesis in the nearly pitch-dark Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. “Predators left marks on the clay. Predation rates on clay caterpillars and the abundance of arthropod predators were significantly higher on the artificial light at night treatment plots. This suggests an increase of mortality pressure on caterpillars.”
Deitsch and Sara Kaiser, research ecologist and director of the Hubbard Brook Field Ornithology Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, co-authored the research, “Artificial Light at Night Increases Top-Down Pressure on Caterpillars: Experimental Evidence From a Light-Naive Forest.”
Scientists can place clay models that look like caterpillars in the woods. Due to the soft clay, the researchers can examine the marks and get a sense of how often larvae are attacked by predators (photo by John Deitsch, Cornell University) The caterpillar models, made from green, extruded clay to mimic the color and size of Noctuidae (owlet moths) and Notodontidae (prominent moths) caterpillars, are commonly found at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. The soft clay easily allows for imprints so that the scientists can determine if predators – like arthropods, insects or birds – landed on the model or tried to take a bite.
While effects of artificial light at night have often been studied on adult insects (such as moths), the larvae (caterpillars) have seen little research.
Of the 552 clay caterpillars deployed and glued to leaves to look authentic, 521 models were recovered and 249 (47.8%) showed predatory marks from arthropods, during the summer-long nighttime study.
Further, the research found that caterpillar predation rates were 27% higher on experimental plots – compared to the control areas in the same forest – that had 10 to 15 lux (about the brightness of a streetlight), which is an illumination measurement for LED lighting.
Given the global ubiquity of artificial light at night, increased threat to caterpillars is yet another ecological problem for lepidoptera, in addition to habitat loss, agricultural-chemical pollutants, invasive species and climate change, according to the paper.
Caterpillars are the most vulnerable at that larval stage. “They are eating leaves and growing in order to mature to the next stage,” Kaiser said, explaining that real-life caterpillars can move around leaves to avoid detection, but the scientists sought to understand predators when larvae were illuminated.
“When you turn on a porch light, you suddenly see a bunch of insects outside the door,” Kaiser said. “But when you draw in those arthropod predators by adding light, then what is the impact on developing larvae? Top-down pressure – the possibility of being eaten by something.”
Funding was provided by the Rochester Academy of Science, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. For Deitsch, the research was made possible by an Experiential Learning Grant from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Ivy Scholars Fund. — By Blaine Friedlander, Cornell University
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Growing Crops at Solar Farms Yields Efficiency
In the threatening trouble of climate change, growing commercial crops on solar farms is a potentially efficient use of agricultural land that can both increase commercial food production and improve solar panel performance and longevity, according to new Cornell research.
The group published new research Feb. 15 in Applied Energy.
“We now have, for the first time, a physics-based tool to estimate the costs and benefits of co-locating solar panels and commercial agriculture from the perspective of increased power conversion efficiency and solar-panel longevity,” said lead author Henry Williams, a doctoral student in Cornell Engineering.
“There is potential for agrivoltaic systems – where agriculture and solar panels coexist – to provide increased passive cooling through taller panel heights, more reflective ground cover and higher evapotranspiration rates compared to traditional solar farms,” said senior author Max Zhang, professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, “We can generate renewable electricity and conserve farmland through agrivoltaic systems.”
In New York, for example, about 40% of utility-scale solar farm capacity has been developed on agricultural lands, while about 84% of land deemed suitable for utility-scale solar development is agricultural, according to a previous research study from Zhang’s group.
By using a computational fluid dynamics-based microclimate model and solar panel temperature data, the group evaluated solar panel height, the light reflectivity of the ground and rates of evapotranspiration (the process where water vapor rises from the plants and soil). They found that agrivoltaic systems can potentially help resolve future global food-energy problems.
The engineers showed that solar panels mounted over vegetation reveal surface temperature drops compared to those arrays built over bare ground. Solar panels were mounted 4 meters above a soybean crop and the solar modules showed temperature reductions by up to 10 degrees Celsius, compared with solar panels mounted a half-meter above bare soil.
The cooling effect due to enhanced evapotranspiration and surface albedo from vegetation and soil is more significant than that induced by greater panel height; and the passive cooling adds to solar panel efficiency, compared with exposed soil or gravel, according to the paper. Better yet, however, the temperature drops leads to an improved solar panel lifespan – and improved, long-term economic potential.
“As you decrease the solar panel operating temperature, you can increase efficiency and improve the longevity of your solar modules,” said Williams, “We’re showing dual benefits. On one hand, you have food production for farmers, and on the other hand, we’ve shown improved longevity and improved conversion efficiency for solar developers.”
Understanding this mutually beneficial concept comes at a critical time for agricultural production, as global food demands are expected to increase by 50% by 2050, to feed an anticipated 10 billion people, according to the World Resources Institute. At the same time, it is imperative to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy to mitigate the impact of climate change.
In hot climates like the western United States, agrivoltaic farms would be ideal.
“Up to this point, most of the benefits from agrivoltaic systems have revolved around hot and arid climate zones,” said Zhang, also the Kathy Dwyer Marble and Curt Marble Faculty Director for the Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, “This paper is taking a step toward evaluating the viability of agrivoltaics in climates representative of the Northeastern U.S. in relaxing the land-use competition the world faces.”
In addition to Zhang and Williams, on the paper, “The Potential for Agrivoltaics to Enhance Solar Farm Cooling,” the other authors are Khaled Hashad Ph.D. ’21 (Engineering), and Haomiao Wang, a master’s degree student in engineering. — By Blaine Friedlander, Cornell University
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Biochar Promise for Ag Can Be Realized When Gov’t Agencies, Research Institutions, NGOs and Industry Come Together
American Farmland Trust, the National Center for Appropriate Technology and the U.S. Biochar Initiative today released Recommendations to Scale Up Sustainable Biochar Research and Commercialization for Agriculture and Conservation, which outlines actions to facilitate the development of a sustainable industry to supply biochar as a crop and grazing land amendment for farmers. Investment in research, production capacity, market mechanisms, outreach, and education will facilitate the broader application of biochar on farms and secure benefits for agriculture along with the delivery of renewable energy as a coproduct.In March 2022, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), NCAT and AFT hosted a two-day virtual event on biochar research and commercialization. Discussions reflected broad agreement that building a pyrolysis biochar and bioenergy industry is a promising near-term strategy for carbon removal. Sustainable fit-for-purpose biochar integrated in soil health management systems has potential to address climate change, build productivity and resilience of farms and forests, and create jobs and opportunity across rural America. Chuck Hassebrook, Director of NCAT’s Biochar Policy Project said, “There is great opportunity to build a biochar and biofuel industry that enhances soil health, sequesters carbon, improves farm and forest income, and creates jobs and opportunity across rural America. But federal investment in research and development is needed to unlock that opportunity.”
Building a sustainable pyrolysis biochar bioenergy industry will require a coordinated, multi-faceted strategy. Supportive public policy is needed to prompt investment in production capacity and market development. Convening participants stressed that commercially relevant results are needed during the next five years. Rachel Seman-Varner, Senior Scientist at AFT said, “Current barriers limit the widespread production and use of biochar, and therefore the realization of the full potential climate adaptation and mitigation benefits of the practice. Key barriers can be addressed with a cross-agency, multi-stakeholder approach outlined with these recommendations.”
This white paper presents four core policy recommendations derived from the convening.
- Coordinated Biochar Research Initiative – A coordinated research approach is recommended that includes cross-site and site-specific research to understand the interactions between various biochars, soils, crops, management, and weather as proposed in the Biochar Research Network Act introduced recently in Congress.
- Biochar Outreach, Extension and Education – In order to scale up biochar use, gaps in knowledge need to be filled by outreach, extension and education organizations to support farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange, on-farm demonstration trials, development of decision support tools, public-private partnerships to support biochar adoption, and knowledge transfer.
- Support of Commercialization of Biochar & Development of a Sustainable Biochar & Biofuel Industry – Developing a sustainable biochar biofuel industry will require strategic incentives and investments – we cannot wait for production and markets to align.
- Cross Agency Action Plan – This white paper outlines detailed recommendations for cross agency actions among USDA, DOE, EPA, and other agencies to address policy barriers to biochar adoption.
Tom Miles, Executive Director of US Biochar Initiative said, “Biochars and biochar-amended products are being used productively in agriculture today. Improved outreach, government incentives, and long-term research are needed to stimulate investment, scale production, and validate long-term agronomic and environmental benefits.”
We cannot wait 50 years to realize the potential of biochar. We present these policy recommendations to meet that challenge.
To view the recorded convening and summary paper along with additional biochar resources, visit the convening webpage on AFT’s Farmland Information Center.
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$1 Billion to Help Farmers Invest in Renewable Energy Systems and Energy-Efficiency Improvements
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA is accepting applications starting on April 1 for $1 billion in grants to help agricultural producers and rural small businesses invest in renewable energy systems and make energy-efficiency improvements. USDA is making the $1 billion in grants available under the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), with funding from President Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s largest-ever investment in combatting the climate crisis.
“Supporting renewable energy and energy-saving systems helps the people of rural America create thriving, livable communities,” Vilsack said. “When we invest in rural communities, we are supporting hard work that sends a ripple effect across our country. Clean energy is critical to the future of our economy, and the Inflation Reduction Act provides the Biden-Harris Administration with the resources to build a more prosperous rural America while tackling the climate crisis and lowering energy costs.”
Recipients may use REAP funds to install renewable energy systems or to make energy-efficiency improvements. Eligible applicants include rural small businesses and agricultural producers. USDA will hold competitions quarterly through Sept. 30, 2024. The funding will also include the creation of the first underutilized technology fund in the REAP program, with $144.5 million available in dedicated funding.
USDA is particularly interested in REAP projects that will help rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and improved infrastructure, reduce climate pollution and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change, conserve and protect farmland, and invest in underserved communities. The program is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to ensure that 40% of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved and overburdened by pollution.
To ensure that small projects have a fair opportunity to compete for the funding, USDA will set aside at least 20% of the available funds until June 30 of each year for grant requests of $20,000 or less, including the grant portion of a combined grant and guaranteed loan request.
The maximum federal share which may be requested is up to 50% of the total project cost for all energy-efficiency projects and zero-emissions renewable energy systems. An award of up to 50% of the total project cost is also available for any project in a designated energy community and/or submitted by an eligible tribal entity. All other projects are eligible to apply for grants of up to 25% of the total project cost. The maximum grant is $1 million for renewable energy systems and $500,000 for energy-efficiency projects.
For additional information on application deadlines and submission details, see page 19239 of the March 31 Federal Register.
Inflation Reduction Act: Background
The Inflation Reduction Act will boost the long-term resiliency, reliability and affordability of rural electric systems. It will help families save money on utility bills, and it will expand rural opportunities in the clean-energy economy.