Healthy Soils Program (HSP)

Healthy Soils Program (HSP)

The Healthy Soils Program encourages farmers to incorporate conservation agriculture techniques that improve their soil health and sequester carbon. It awards funds up to $75,000.    

Eligible practices include:

• Cropland practices:
  • These practices improve the soil’s water-holding capacity, stability, and organic matter content.
     
• Compost application practices:
  • Compost applied to annual crops, perennial crops, vineyards, or orchards
  • Compost can be purchased or produced on-farm
  • Purchased compost must come from a certified compost facility.

• Herbaceous cover establishment:
  • These are practices that use grass to decrease wind and water erosion and keep nutrients in the soil. 

• Woody cover establishment
  • These are practices that use trees or shrubs, not grasses, to decrease wind and water erosion. 

• Grazing land practices
  • These practices aim to improve the productivity and sustainability of pastures and rangelands. 

Here is more specific information about these practices.

How to apply:

The grant process includes a web-based application consisting of a series of questions that can be saved and returned to before submitting: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/healthysoils/IncentivesProgram.html

Projects located in 'Severely Disadvantaged Communities' (SDACs) receive priority funding. For more info and to see if you are located in a SDAC, click here.

Deadlines:

The 2018 HSP grant deadline has now passed. For a list of 2018 awardees, click here.

If you are considering applying for 2019, it is helpful to obtain quotes for projects before starting the application.

To learn more about soil testing, and where to get your soil analyzed near Ventura, click here.

Please contact UC Cooperative Extension specialist Alli Rowe at amrowe@ucanr.edu for questions or help with the application.