Sheep Industry News June 2023

Fibershed Gets to Work on $30 Million Grant

W ith Fibershed among a group of applicants that was tentatively awarded a $30 million Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities grant last fall from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the American sheep industry celebrated its inclusion in the program. After all, producers have known for decades or more that sheep provide countless environ mental benefits. Of the $30 million awarded, $18 million of that will flow di rectly to wool and cotton growers who participate in the program. Heading into the summer, the five-year program is starting to take shape. “We just got the official contract signed last week,” Fibershed Climate Beneficial Technician Mike Conover said in mid-April. “It’s been a long process and we’re still trying to figure out what the recruiting process looks like. We’re going to be looking to work with producers on different scales.” Based in California, Fibershed has conducted similar climate beneficial projects throughout the state, working with producers who run sheep on anywhere from five acres to 100,000 acres to sequester carbon, regenerate soil health and resilience, improve social equity and bolster America’s ability to produce Climate Beneficial fiber. “Climate Beneficial wool growers took the first risk with us in 2015 and now Climate Beneficial cotton growers are putting them selves out to trial new ways of doing things for the health of the soil and the climate,” said Fibershed Founder and Executive Direc tor Rebecca Burgess in a press release announcing the grant. “This grant allows us to build out the markets in the ways that we need to, to keep rural communities strong, farmers farming and ranch ers ranching in a way that puts carbon back where it belongs.” The National Center for Appropriate Technology is the lead organization on the grant. Fibershed, the Carbon Cycle Institute, Colorado State University, Seed2Shirt and New York Textile Lab join NCAT as the core Partnership team, which will support the expansion of climate-smart wool and cotton production on 100 farms and ranches spread across almost two million acres. “We have a set of producers we know are already interested, but we are also actively looking for producers who want to be a part of this project,” Conover said. “We want to uplift the entire natural fiber industry – both wool and cotton – and make markets more valuable across the country while rooting these operations in practices that are actively accelerating carbon drawdown. Ideally, this program would grow to a national scale, but at the moment we’re focused on particular regions. Producers in these regions are the ones we’re specifically looking to work with.”

PRODUCERS CAN PARTICIPATE Fibershed and its partners will be enrolling wool producers in Montana, South Dakota,Wyoming and California to take part in the grant program. Wool growers from New York State are also eligible as New York Textile Lab – a Fibershed affiliate – is also a partner on this project. From providing technical assistance and developing a carbon farm plan, to funding for practice implemen tation identified in those plans, the grant will put money directly into producers’ pockets during the next five years. “There’s an implementation fund that will provide cost share reimbursement, similar to the USDA Natural Resources Conser vation Service’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which many producers might be familiar with,” Conover said. “It will also provide a producer stipend fund to compensate producers for the time they spend on the carbon farm planning process.” Carbon farm planning is a whole farm assessment that identi fies opportunities for increasing carbon capture and storage, such as planting a windbreak, pasture seeding, applying compost to rangeland or pasture rotation. In many cases, these are things pro ducers are already doing as stewards of the land they graze. “Producers might not have the terminology to express it yet, but a lot of them are already doing climate beneficial work,” Conover said. “The project is designed to uplift what producers are doing and support them in continuing to do that work while taking it to the next level. We want them to look at any and all ad ditional practices they might be able to implement.” While all wool producers in the primary target states are eli gible and encouraged to apply to participate in the project, wool growers must come in with an interest and an openness toward implementing climate beneficial projects. They should also be interested in the marketing opportunities that might come from taking part in the program. The project team is also upholding values around serving traditionally underserved producers, and achieving ambitious greenhouse gas benefits. “One of our projects in California is the Climate Beneficial Wool Pool,” Conover said. “We work with producers to aggregate their wool and make connections to the Climate Beneficial supply chain. We support the pool by building connections with brands seeking to source Climate Beneficial material. Producers could sell their wool into our wool pool, and we’ll use the volume to work with a variety of different brands. We’re doing similar work with cotton, but in a slightly different way.” Fibershed’s wool pool in California works with fine wool producers, but the USDA grant program will be open to all wool – regardless of whether it’s fine, medium or coarse. While Fibershed

20 • Sheep Industry News • sheepusa.org