Farm Compliance

Washington, DC - USDA is awarding $5 million to 11 universities to conduct air quality projects aimed at developing and evaluating emission control technologies that will lead to developing emission data for agriculture production practices and mitigation techniques.

 

The grants program funds research to increase knowledge about the transport, measurement and control of odor, gases and particulate matter. The education and outreach component of the program includes transferring technologies and best practices to producers and the regulatory community to lessen the production and transport of air pollutants and greenhouse gases.

 

USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) administer the awards through the National Research Initiative (NRI) Air Quality competitive grants program. In the past five years, the CSREES air quality program has awarded more than $20 million in grants.

 

Funded projects include:

Research at the University of Pittsburg to investigate the use of stable isotopes as monitoring tools to understand residual agricultural pollutants.

West Texas A&M University will develop and optimize bioremediation techniques for reducing odors at animal feeding facilities.

 

Ohio State University and Washington State University will develop innovative processes for recovering ammonia from agricultural atmospheric emissions; concentrated animal feeding operations can then adopt this process.

The fiscal year 2007 grants are being awarded to:

 

 

CSREES' NRI program is the largest peer reviewed, competitive grant program at USDA for research, extension and education grants that address key problems of national, regional and multi-state importance in sustaining all components of agriculture.