UI lands largest grant in its history

This story has been updated from its original version to include how much the grant will be worth.

The University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences will receive up to $55 million, the largest award in the university’s history, to help Idaho farmers and ranchers combat climate change.

The award, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is twice as large as any previous UI grant. In addition to supporting research on building cropping systems that are more resilient to climate change, the five-year grant stimulates the state’s economy by paying more than half of the funds directly to Idaho agricultural producers.

UI’s “Climate-Smart Commodities for Idaho: A Public-Private-Tribal Partnership” is among 70 projects awarded nationally for a combined investment of about $2.8 billion included in the first pool of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities.

UI’s grant will directly benefit more than 100 Idaho farmers and ranchers. Research will focus on the state’s staple commodities, such as potatoes, beef, sugar, wheat, barley, hops and chickpeas. The grant will drive climate-smart practices on about 10% of Idaho’s active cropland, preventing the emission of as much as 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere.

Food producers will be eligible for payments to try a host of climate-smart practices, such as raising crops primarily for soil health benefits, known as cover cropping, or reducing reliance on tillage, which helps soil hold carbon that would otherwise be released as carbon dioxide.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe Natural Resources Department and the Nez Perce Tribe Land Services Division will be partners in the project, helping to test several climate-smart conservation practices on tribal lands.

Jodi Johnson-Maynard, head of the UI department of soil and water systems, and Sanford Eigenbrode, a distinguished professor in the entomology, plant pathology and nematology department will lead the project. Both Johnson-Maynard and Eigenbrode have led large-scale climate research grants, which brought in a combined $23.4 million.

Additional partners in the UI-led project all reside in Idaho and include the Idaho Association of Soil Conservation Districts, Salmon Safe, The Nature Conservancy Idaho Chapter Office, The Wave Foundation, Desert Mountain Grassfed Beef and Kooskooskie Fish LLC.

Researchers with UI’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences are partners in two additional USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grants led by other institutions totaling more than $75 million.