Record Number of Healthy Soils Projects Funded in California

This month, the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced the award of $66 million in Healthy Soils Program incentives grants to 940 projects. This unprecedented funding level for the program is the highest allocation in a single year in the program’s history. A full list of awardees is listed here.

Awards this year exceeded all of the proceeding years combined in terms of funding amount and total projects. Including this latest round, the Healthy Soils Program has funded 1,513 incentives projects totaling $98 million between 2017-2021. The Incentives projects are on approximately 138,000 acres and will sequester 350,000 metric tons of CO₂ equivalents.

Even with the historic level of program funding, farmer and rancher demand still exceeded available state funding with 1,328 applications and $90.52 million requested, which reflects a doubling of the already record-high demand for the previous funding cycle.

CalCAN continues to advocate for robust funding for the Healthy Soils Program. We are pleased that in a recent budget deal finalized by the Governor and legislative leaders that the Healthy Soils Program funding will go up to $85 million for FY 2022-2023 (a forthcoming blog will have more on the FY 22-23 budget deal). 

CalCAN will publish an in-depth follow up blog once additional Healthy Soils program data become available. Have questions about the California Healthy Soils Program?  Feel free to drop us a line: info@calclimateag.org.