California Dairy Research Foundation Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Project

Notice: _On April 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC). The USDA plans to reform the program into the Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative. Contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) for more information on how to apply to the AMP initiative. _

This project will build climate-smart dairy markets and provide financial incentives for dairy producers to adopt climate-smart manure management practices to reduce methane emissions, leveraging matching funding from non-federal sources. Financial incentives are planned on a per-cow basis to producers to implement vermifiltration, evaporative liquid waste processing systems, subsurface drip fertigation using liquid manure, weeping walls, aerated static compost piles, and others.

On average producers will likely receive incentives that account for 30 to 50 percent of their total costs of CSAF practice adoption, while also receiving a premium for the climate-smart milk. This project plans to utilize partnerships designed to market climate-smart milk for a higher premium and conduct a consumer market messaging analysis to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of approaches to best promote climate-smart milk in multiple market channels.

Grants applications are closed for 2024. Applications will open in spring 2025. For more information, see the website.