General Information

Drought Assistance Cost Share Program. NCFB has worked with the NC Rural Center, NC Division of Soil and Water, NC Department of Agriculture and other stakeholders to put together a drought response project with funding from the Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, through the Rural Center. The Division is slated to receive $5,550,000 from this grant to fund installation of 4 best management practices through the Ag Cost-Share Program:

1. Renovation of pastures killed or damaged by the drought
2. Drilling wells for farmers whose existing water supplies for livestock watering or irrigation either went dry or were inadequate to meet existing water supply needs.
3. Renovating existing ponds and constructing new ponds for farmers whose existing water supplies for livestock watering or irrigation either went dry or were inadequate to meet existing water supply needs.
4. Retrofitting existing irrigation systems to conservation irrigation systems (e.g., converting from overhead spray to drip or low-volume stake emitters).

The Soil and Water Conservation Commission held a teleconference on April 11 to consider the proposed project and to provide its endorsement. The Commission also set aside $1 million of the ACSP for PY-2009 for installing fencing and other stream protection systems on well and pond projects involving livestock production operations. Tuesday, April 22, a press conference is scheduled at 1:00 in the Legislative Bldg. to announce the project. Soon thereafter NCDA&CS is going to send a letter to about 60,000 individual producers and operators about the effort and project. This letter will include an announcement about the drought response project and will instruct interested farmers to submit applications in their SWCD offices beginning May 1.

Program highlights are as follows:

1. An individual or entity must certify that they have an average adjusted gross income (AGI) not exceeding $250,000 to receive program payments under the grant, unless at least 75 percent of the AGI is derived from farming, ranching, or forestry operations.
2. Funds can be used retroactively to pay farmers for eligible practices installed and documented since August 1, 2007. This includes the ability to revise contracts for pasture renovation written for the existing drought response where districts were unable to approve the full 75% of actual cost due to funding limitations.
3. Districts must send in a request for drought allocation by May 16 that is based on applications received since May 1 for these practices, and the Commission will allocate up to $2 million at its May 27 meeting. Additional allocation events are planned for July, September, November, and January. The districts will continue to seek applications and allocation requests until the available funds are consumed.
4. Funds under this project are only intended to meet existing needs for water supplies, not those anticipated to serve expanded operations.
5. Since the allocations are going to be based on applications received by districts, even districts who did not indicate an expected demand for drought funds on the recent surveys will be eligible to receive an allocation if they receive eligible applications.

Please stay tuned for more detailed information as it is developed.

Green Industry Water Concerns. Golden Leaf provides matching grant funds of up to $215,400. The Golden Leaf Foundation approved the matching grant funds to help fund market recovery efforts for the state’s Green Industry, which has been hard hit by the 2007 drought. The funds to match money already spent in 2008 and like kind contributions from industry and NCSU and others, will be used by NCDA&CS to fund an aggressive advertising and p.r. campaign to promote water wise gardening and the new Tarheel Gardening website. Efforts will be focused on the major consumption markets in urban/suburban areas to create demand.

Green Industry Council (GIC) consultants meet with municipal and state leaders. Two municipal/regional water supply experts that have been retained by the NC Green Industry Council have met with numerous mayors, town officials, state water regulators and legislators over the past weeks. Among their messages:

• Water conservation should be a permanent aspect of municipal and local water supply plans
• Billing should separate fixed overhead costs for infrastructure development and maintenance from variable water expense that is tiered to penalize abusive water users.

In Western communities in CA and OR where such systems have been put in place both outdoor and indoor water use have dropped from 40%-55%. The NC GIC is working to change local water regulations so that they are fair to all water users.