Money from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program will help farmers in 29 states receive individual on-farm energy audit evaluations and assistance with implementation of energy conservation and efficiency measures. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says the initiative will help agricultural producers transition to more energy efficient operations.
Approximately 1,000 on-farm energy audit evaluations will be funded this fiscal year. The audits will be individually tailored to ensure coverage of each farm's primary energy uses such as milk cooling, irrigation pumping, heating and cooling of livestock production facilities, manure collection and transfer, grain drying, and similar common on-farm activities.
Implementation will occur in stages, focusing on on-farm energy audits to help identify how the operations can become more energy efficient. Longer term goals will involve development of agricultural energy management plans for cost effective implementation of the recommendations provided in the original energy audits.