Jose Robles of Robles Farm in Stanislaus County, a Healthy Soils Program Grant Recipient
This blog is the third in a four-part series that delves into the recent program evaluation of California’s Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Programs. In this installment, we focus on the Healthy Soils Program (HSP), highlighting some of the program-specific findings and recommendations.
Recap of the Evaluation Series
In the first part of this series, we explored the overall findings and recommendations of a recent independent program evaluation of California’s Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Programs led by Dr. Nicholas Babin of Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo. The evaluation showed that the Climate Smart Agriculture programs are effectively helping growers adopt and expand climate-smart farming practices. In the second part of the series we focused on the evaluation’s findings specific to the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP).
In this blog, we summarize some of the program-specific findings and recommendations for the Healthy Soils Program (HSP) from a survey of HSP program participants.
Healthy Soils Program Overview:
HSP provides grants to growers to implement healthy soils practices, such as compost application, cover cropping, and hedgerows for three years. Since its inception in 2017, HSP has awarded more than 1,500 grants totaling over $160 million to California farmers and ranchers, according to CDFA program data as of March 2024.
Healthy Soils Program Specific Key Findings:
Motivations for Participation:
- Unsurprisingly, an overwhelming majority (62%) of participants cited improving soil health as their primary motivation for participation in the program
- More than half of survey respondents were “extremely concerned” about water supply, inflation, and regulations as risks to the viability of their farming operation
High Persistence Rates and Expanded Adoption Beyond Funding:
To evaluate the extent to which HSP recipients plan to continue using the practices they received a grant for (aka their “persistence rate”), the program evaluation asked recipients “Do you intend to use this practice in the next 12 months?” Overall, HSP participant respondents planned to maintain 71% of funded practices, and those who reported seeing benefits were more likely to persist.
The practices with the highest rates of planned persistence were no-till (86%), mulching (76%), and hedgerows (74%); and the lowest was non-hedgerow edge of field practices (64%).¹
Respondents planned to expand 64% of funded practices. These findings around planned persistence and expansion suggest that the program is successful in incentivizing the adoption and increased acreage of healthy soils practices.
Additional Labor and Equipment Needed to Implement Practices:
The evaluation also found that one-fifth of respondents did not have the needed labor or equipment to implement practices, highlighting the possibility of equipment sharing to help address this challenge. The evaluation recommends developing pathways for grantees to access equipment and identifies the potential for regional equipment-sharing programs to help HSP recipients implement practices such as compost application.
CalCAN is involved with legislation to help address this challenge. AB 2734 (Connolly), sponsored by CalCAN coalition member CCOF, would allow the program’s technical assistance grants to include equipment sharing. CalCAN and CAFF are also co-sponsoring AB 2313 (Bennett), which would create a grant program at CDFA to fund regional equipment-sharing programs. If voters pass Proposition 4 this November, $15 million would be available for an equipment sharing program.
CDFA’s On-Going Improvement:
The program evaluation included several recommendations related to HSP, many of which CDFA has taken steps to address. These recommendations include:
- Allow more flexibility in budget change processes. CDFA has already taken steps to address this by only requiring paperwork on budget changes beyond a certain dollar threshold.
- Increase the amount of advanced funding available to grantees. Current regulations limit the total proportion of project funds that may be disbursed in advance to HSP grantees, which can create a cash flow challenge for growers. CDFA has been collaboratively engaged in discussions with CalCAN and the legislature about a bill (AB 2734, Connolly) to address this issue. However, we have determined that further conversations with the Department of Finance and CDFA may be needed, given other recent legislation (AB 590, Hart) affecting advanced payments across multiple agencies.
- Make the application process more friendly to small and medium farms. CDFA has taken steps in more recent solicitations to streamline the application process through the introduction of the “RePlan” tool to help generate needed documents. CalCAN is committed to continuing to collaborate with CDFA to make the application process accessible to small, medium, and socially disadvantaged farmers!
Read more about the data collected on HSP or the other programs evaluated in the complete report which includes further details, data, and CDFA’s cover letter.
Additional Healthy Soils Program Resources
To learn more about HSP, you can read one of our recent reports. This includes our 2020 Healthy Soils Program Progress Report, which focuses on the incentive program, and our 2022 Demonstration Projects Progress Report, which focuses on the demonstration projects aspect of the Healthy Soils Program.
If you are interested in learning more about how HSP can benefit your farm or have insights into healthy soils practices, feel free to contact Anna Larson, our Associate Policy Director, who leads our healthy soils policy work.
For examples of previously funded HSP projects, check out the “Building Healthy Soils to Store Carbon” section of CalCAN’s Farmer Voices page.
