Improving natural resource conservation through agricultural producer collaborations

Texas A&M AgriLife Research has been awarded $11.4 million in Conservation Innovation Grants, CIG, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS.

CIG On-Farm Trials projects feature collaboration between NRCS and partners to implement on-the-ground conservation activities and evaluate their impact. CIG On-Farm Trials support the widespread adoption and evaluation of innovative conservation approaches alongside agricultural producers.

The grant funding is part of a $90 million investment by USDA across 53 projects in the U.S. that support the development of new tools, approaches, practices and technologies to further natural resource conservation on private lands.

Soil health management

Soil Health Demonstrations to Increase Regenerative Agricultural Intensification in the Southern High Plains — $5 million

This project aims to sustainably intensify agricultural production in Texas and Oklahoma by adopting soil health management in semi-arid cropping systems.

Among the key objectives are:

• Identifying adoption barriers to soil health management systems and pathways to overcome them.
• Increasing understanding of field-level processes, effects and optimization of agricultural intensification using soil health management systems.
• Evaluating the economics of soil health management adoption at farm and regional scales.

On-farm soil health management system demonstrations will take place on 10 innovation and 100 observation farms within the region. The project is expected to increase cover crop adoption by 20% and no-tillage by 25% in the Southern Great Plains region and, thus, has a goal of increasing agricultural production by 25% while reducing the environmental footprint.

Natural resource conservation through grazing and emissions management

Technology Driven Practical Nutrition and Methane Management for Grazing Land Livestock Producers — $2 million

This project, aimed at Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, will apply portable near-infrared technology to enable efficient food and fiber production while effectively managing methane emissions from grazing animals.

Capitalizing on the relationship between ruminant diet/fecal chemistry and enteric emissions to estimate grazing animal methane output, AgriLife Research will implement and evaluate practical management options on participating ranches to improve nutritional efficiency and reduce environmental effects.

Applying Feeding Management Technologies to Foster Climate-Smart Beef Production in Diverse Grazing Conditions — $4.4 million

This initiative will implement combined feeding management strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and optimize feed utilization for beef cattle grazing in diverse conditions.

On-farm trials will take place in Texas, involving strategic use of proven on-farm deployable technologies such as feed additives, targeted supplementation and refined grazing management with cattle that differ in feed efficiency. 

Insights from these on-farm trials will inform the development of a decision-support tool, enabling producers to adopt innovative feeding practices tailored to their specific operations.