Sutter County Resource Conservation District (SCRCD) has partnered up with Yolo County Resource Conservation District (YCRCD) to be apart of the 11 organizations that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has selected to receive $5 million in funding through a new grant program, the Water Efficiency Technical Assistance (WETA) program. WETA was developed due to the Budget Act of 2021 which allocated funding for California farmers and ranchers to help support technical assistance for water efficiency and nutrient management.

Applications for WETA were accepted from late November 2021 through February 3, 2022. Applicants such as Resource Conservation Districts, non-profit organizations, the University of California and California State University systems, California community colleges, as well as California and federally recognized Tribes were eligible to apply for up to $500,000 to provide technical assistance. These activities include on-farm pump and irrigation system evaluations and recommendations, pump efficiency testing, and providing training in irrigation efficiency and nutrient management. 

The partnership between SCRCD and YCRCD received $499,808.40 in funding to provide agricultural irrigation conservation services for 5,621 farms covering over 739,679 acres in Yolo, Sutter, Yuba and Colusa counties known as Sutter-Yolo Mobile Irrigation Lab (MIL). MIL will build on a longstanding joint effort with the Resource Conservation District of Tehama County (RCDTC) by funding a new MIL Manager position out of the YCRCD office and staff time for a Sutter RCD Project Manager to expand pump and irrigation evaluation services to many more growers in the four-county area and to be able to provide multilingual technical assistance to serve socially-disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.

To find out more about WETA or how to get involved you can email us at scrcdoffice@gmail.com