Funds available in California for dairy digester development

Jan 21, 2015

Grant winners will be announced between May and June 2015

By Diego Flammini, Farms.com

The application period is open for interested parties who want to receive funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture for the Dairy Digester Research and Development Program (DDRDP).

Around $11 million is being made available through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with approval from the 2014’s Budget Act to provide financial backing to those who want to install dairy digesters in California with the hopes it can reduce greenhouse gasses (GHG). There will also be $500,000 available for digester research and demonstration initiatives.

What do dairy digesters do?

They use manure from livestock to produce methane, which can be used to produce electricity and, heat buildings, or used as a transportation fuel.

“Digester technology is precisely the kind of innovation that California farmers are known for,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross in a release. “It promotes low carbon fuels, agricultural energy efficiency and other operational advantages. We are very encouraged about the potential of this program.”

Interested applicants must submit their application package by Monday, February 23^rd, 2015, 5:00p.m. PST.

The packages must include a variety of information including a cover page, project narrative, a work plan, summary of costs, greenhouse gas emissions reductions and impacts and benefits on the environment and surrounding communities.

There will be also be information sessions for interested parties.

Wednesday, January 21
University of California Cooperative Extension Tulare County
4437 S. Laspina Street (across from World Ag Expo)
Tulare County Agricultural Building Auditorium
1p.m. – 3p.m.

Tuesday, January 27
Webinar
There’s limited space so anyone interested must reserve their spot
1p.m. – 3p.m.

Wednesday, January 28
California Department of Food and Agriculture
1220 N Street
1p.m. – 3p.m.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.