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Place to Grow Guide for
Applicants: Soil Health and Water Quality
Soil Health and Water Quality: Assessment
and Planning
Purpose of Project Category:
Projects will focus on encouraging agricultural sector leadership
and regional partnerships in developing sector-level or regional
plans, or larger systems analysis (sector evaluation or analysis,
sustainability systems), for improving soil health or water quality.
Target Audience
Partners with a focus on the agriculture or agri-food sector, environment,
or conservation with projects supporting improvements in water quality
undertaken in a geographical area that must have demonstrated nutrient
related water quality impairments or with projects supporting soil
health, undertaken in geographical areas with degraded soil health.
Eligible Projects
- Developing sector-level plans
- Conducting assessments
- Conducting audits or analysis
Examples of projects
Development of decision support tools for agricultural producers
to support reduced nutrient loss from agricultural land
Project Category Priorities
- Projects related to water quality must be undertaken in geographic
area(s) with demonstrated nutrient related water quality impacts,
with a priority for the Lake Erie basin
- Projects related to soil health must by undertaken in geographic
areas with degraded soil health
- Projects that help an agriculture sector quantify or demonstrate
their sources of phosphorus loss or soil degradation to their
producers
- Sector or geography focused implementation plans and/or tools
to support improved planning or risk assessments at the farm,
regional or provincial scales
- Decision support tools, IT projects, and similar activities
must be able to demonstrate they are fulfilling a planning need
not yet addressed, and will have wide-spread use, through the
written support from representatives of end users
- Projects demonstrating whole-farm approaches
- Partnerships bringing in new partners, e.g., academics and conservation
authorities, bringing diversity of thought and approaches, from
other sectors and disciplines, to the activities that increase
the likelihood of projects leading to behavior change
Recommended Cost-share
- Up to $400,000 per project per year
Eligible Activities
- All eligible activities must be linked to the development of
an assessment, audit, analysis or plan
- Planning and decision support tools, technologies, and software
that build on existing tools or meet gaps in current decision
support tool landscape
- Analysis and assessment required to develop production systems
based case studies and decision tools that simplify the selection
of agri-environmental best management practices (BMPs) for a specific
production system, taking into consideration site specific risks
(e.g., topography, nearby waterbodies, etc.)
- IT software system selection and configuration for the first-time
establishment, initial data entry and training of users for multi-partner
systems associated with development of a plan
- Data collection, materials, sampling and analysis
- Measuring, benchmarking and baseline assessments at a subwatershed
or sector level, regarding nutrients or soils including sample
design and collection strategies which should be prepared with
input from academic and government leaders to support use of comparable
methodologies, with the intent to facilitate data sharing
- Activities improving the use and management of nutrients, water,
wastewater and soils
Ineligible Activities
- Providing cost-share funding for implementation of BMPs on individual
producers' properties (but may include support for cost-share
funding for BMPs on demonstration farms properties)
- Establishing IT systems necessary to meet ordinary operations/business
needs
Terms and Conditions
Soil Health and Water Quality: Outreach,
Education and Advisory Services
Purpose of Project Category:
Projects will focus on improving the transfer of knowledge to agricultural
producers on the importance and approaches to mitigate risks to
water and soil quality through targeted site-specific actions. The
intent of knowledge transfer activities is to encourage actions
in support of reducing excess nutrients entering the waterways in
the Great Lakes basin from agricultural sources.
Approaches must encourage the use of multiple best management practices
(BMPs) in a whole-farm approach and include defined target audiences
intended to be reached through communications. Projects may include
work to characterize and better understand the audience to inform
the communications activities.
Projects may be anticipated to support co-benefits including:
- Increased resiliency of farm businesses to extreme weather events
and climate change
- Improved agricultural productivity through increased efficiency
in crop inputs and soil health improvements
- Improved water management on-farm
- Improved habitat for pollinators and other species
Target Audience
Partners that have an education, outreach or advisory services
plan, with a focus on supporting improvements in water quality (undertaken
in a geographical area that must have demonstrated nutrient related
water quality impairments) or supporting soil health, (undertaken
in geographical areas with degraded soil health), targeting the
agriculture or agri-food sector
Eligible Projects
- Outreach strategies
- Training sessions
- Knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing
- Workshops
- Tours
- Communications, including background work to characterize and
better understand methods to reach intended audiences
Examples of projects
Implementation of a plan that outlines a multi-channel, multi-venue
approach to communicate messages and/or advice around soil health
and water quality outcomes. This could include a mix of approaches
including workshops, field days, speaker series, booths or presentations
at existing farm events, print or online materials, or developing
a new symposium or conference
Project Category Priorities
- Projects related to water quality must be undertaken in geographic
area(s) with demonstrated nutrient related water quality impacts,
with a priority for the Lake Erie basin
- Projects related to soil health must by undertaken in geographic
areas with degraded soil health
- Projects that help an agriculture sector quantify or demonstrate
their sources of phosphorus loss or soil degradation to their
producers
- Activities should be informed by science and are encouraged
to make use of innovative messaging and behavior change strategies
- Projects that demonstrate evidence of planning, coordination
and execution among partners or through confirmed engagement and
support of other parties, including integrating environmental
and agronomy expertise
- Projects supporting a whole-farm approach
- Projects including, where possible, economic factors such as
input costs and yield assessment in the communications
- Projects supporting innovative outreach approaches (not commonly
used in Ontario), where the project includes an evaluation of
effectiveness of the innovative outreach approach
- Projects that are implementing collaborative and/or existing
comprehensive plans with multiple tactics to best fit information
to need of audience and maximize reach of messaging
Recommended Cost-share
- Up to $250,000 per project per year
Eligible Activities
- Activities related to the on-farm development of knowledge and
skills required to, or advisory services to actively manage the
use of nutrients, water, wastewater and soils to reduce the potential
for off-site impacts from operations
- Activities must target producers or their advisors
- Options of activities, in any combination, may include but are
not limited to:
- developing course materials
- delivery of training courses
- outreach strategies
- workshops
- demonstrations
- tours
- peer-to-peer networks and clubs
- printed written and web based materials
- farm-based advisory services
- first-time only conferences and symposia, with incremental
new activities to be supported, where producers and agri-business
are the primary audience along with conservation professionals
with the intent of building inter-disciplinary knowledge and
relationships to support future on-the-ground stewardship
action on-farm
Ineligible Activities
- Providing cost-share funding for BMPs on individual producers'
properties (but may include support for cost-share funding for
BMPs on demonstration farms properties)
Terms and Conditions
Soil Health and Water Quality: Innovation
Pilots and Applied Research
Purpose of Project Category:
Projects will focus on supporting applied research and demonstrations
of technology, with selection driven by industry, where technology
and/or practices need validation and demonstration on Ontario farms
to overcome barriers to adoption identified by the sector. Projects
will also increase knowledge of innovative technology and practice
implementation with impacts to soil and water (on-site and off-site
impacts) through pilots on-farm. Education and outreach initiatives,
including economic assessment (i.e. yield and/or profitability assessments),
will help to strengthen project activities related to soil health
and/or water quality.
Target Audience
Partners with a focus on the agriculture or agri-food sector, environment,
or conservation with projects supporting improvements in water quality
undertaken in a geographical area that must have demonstrated nutrient
related water quality impairments or with projects supporting soil
health, undertaken in geographical areas with degraded soil health
Eligible Projects
- Projects must address soil health and/or address surface water
quality across a watershed area or for a water body with demonstrated
phosphorus stress
- Applied research and testing of new technologies
- Pilot projects
- Demonstration projects
- Projects must demonstrate knowledge/expertise and networks for
knowledge translation and transfer and include a knowledge translation
and transfer plan
- Projects must demonstrate an understating of current state of
knowledge of the practice or technology
Examples of Projects
- Evaluating soil degradation and phosphorus loss from farms on
a site-specific basis where the information is used to inform
modeling, education/outreach efforts, tool development, and/or
practice selection
- Evaluating methods to improve water quality and soil health,
through mitigating or managing risks to surface and ground water,
such as practices to reduce soil erosion, more efficiently managed
nutrients, or technologies to capture and treat run-off
Project Category Priorities
- Projects related to water quality must be undertaken in geographic
area(s) with demonstrated nutrient related water quality impacts,
with a priority for the Lake Erie basin
- Projects related to soil health must by undertaken in geographic
areas with degraded soil health
- Projects that help an agriculture sector quantify or demonstrate
their sources of phosphorus loss or soil degradation to their
producers
- Applied research should be addressing an identified gap and/or
building on past efforts
Priority will be given to projects that:
- Are planned and executed in partnerships with industry
- Are supporting a broad impact across a sector or a geographical
area to address an identified agri-environmental risk (i.e. have
high potential for widespread adoption and high likelihood of
impact
- Can demonstrate the research gap/need has yet to be addressed
and/or has come from the sector or government as priority
- Quantify the benefit to the environmental outcome (e.g., quantifies
the phosphorus loss reduction)
- Support risk assessment and/or decision-making tool development
or enhancement
- Include economic factors such as input costs and yield assessment
in the analysis
- Support a whole-farm approach and multiple-BMP analysis
- Pilot test technologies not currently in widespread use within
the production system in Ontario
Recommended Cost-share
- Up to $200,000 per project per year
Eligible Activities
- Evaluating methods to improve water quality and soil health,
through mitigating or managing risks to surface and ground water,
such as practices to reduce soil erosion, more efficiently managed
nutrients, or technologies to capture and treat run-off
- Applied research and piloting/testing of new technologies, processes,
practices or systems
- Benchmarking or analysis of environmental performance of best
management practices, sectors or operations
- Implementing BMPs on demonstration farms may be considered
Ineligible Activities
- Activities that do not contribute to addressing soil health
and surface water quality across a watershed area or for a water
body with demonstrated phosphorus stress
Terms and Conditions
For more information:
Toll Free: 1-877-424-1300
E-mail: ag.info.omafra@ontario.ca
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