Over $1.3 Million Awarded To Indiana Soil Conservation Districts And Organizations

The Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) and the Indiana State Soil Conservation Board SSCB) announced that 16 soil and water conservation districts and one organization were awarded over $1.3 million in Clean Water Indiana competitive grant funding. This funding will support water quality improvements across the state.

"This funding is critical for our local soil and water conservation districts to assist farmers with bettering their water quality initiatives," said Lt. Gov. Beckwith, Indiana's Secretary of Agriculture. "This program touches every corner of the state and the improvements made will go a long way in ensuring Indiana remains a leader in soil conservation." 

The Clean Water Indiana program is administered by the state’s soil conservation board. The program, led by the ISDA, provides financial assistance to landowners and conservation groups that are working to reduce runoff from non-point sources of water pollution, whether it’s on agricultural land, urban areas or eroding streambanks.

Once received, districts can use the funds to partner with other counties or address specific needs within their jurisdiction. Some examples include participating in a cost-share program, hiring staff, providing technical assistance, implementing cover crop incentive programs or increasing watershed capacity.

Clean Water Indiana (CWI) is managed by ISDA’s Division of Soil Conservation and funded by a portion of the state's cigarette tax. Projects can be up to three years in length and grantees could apply for any dollar amount that was necessary to complete the project. In addition to CWI funds, each grantee is required to produce a match for their project, which can be cash or in-kind. Projects requesting staffing were required to have a 25% match for that component, while all other project areas required a 50% match. Many Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) will target producers not currently served by other conservation programs.

Below is the list of awardees, their project titles and overviews. $1,382,571 was awarded to 17 projects.

Washington County SWCD- $224,200
Crawford, Harrison, Jackson, and Washington counties will offer Clean Water Indiana funded cost-share opportunities to land users alongside educational opportunities and technical assistance protect soil health and water quality by reducing nutrient, sediment and pathogen runoff into surface & ground water.  
This project provides financial and technical assistance for livestock, crop, and wildlife best management practices. Best management practices reduce sediment, nutrients and pathogens reaching waterways in runoff and limiting livestock access. Planting practices filter pollutants, increase biodiversity, decrease soil compaction, restore soil structure and provide continuous root systems which increase soil infiltration.

Delaware County SWCD - $3,000
This project will control invasive species in priority areas along the Cardinal Greenways.

Delaware County SWCD - $125,000
The funds will be used for staffing and support for the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District to hire a Conservation Resource Technician. 

Greene County SWCD - $15,500
The Greene County SWCD will utilize this funding to purchase a no-till drill to assist landowners in implementing increased soil health, water quality and soil water holding capacity on properties located in Greene County. Landowners can utilize the drill to plant cover crops, assist in establishing new pastures, inter-seeding for pasture improvement, plant native grass for prairie establishment and plantings for pollinator habitats.

Jefferson County SWCD- $130,000
The project will promote soil health on pasture and hay land and improve water quality. Conservation practices will be installed that help improve forage and biomass quality, reduce soil erosion and compaction, reduce excessive nutrients and sediments in surface and ground waters and improve inadequate feed, forage and water.  The funds will also promote and incentivize the use of cover crops.

Jefferson County SWCD - $30,650
The project funds will be used to purchase the Jefferson County SWCD a no-till drill to assist landowners in improving the quality of their soil and water resources. 

Jennings County SWCD- $50,000
The Jennings County SWCD and the Ripley County SWCD will provide cost-share to private landowners within Jennings and Ripley counties to start or continue cover crop, forage and biomass planting, and installation of heavy use area protection practices. 

Kosciusko County SWCD- $52,721
This funding will allow the district to undertake a large-scale soil health focused education event across the next 3 years (2025-2027) in addition to providing free soil samples to local producers.  Led by the county-funded Soil Health Specialist, these events are structured as interactive meetings. They are designed to provide a roadmap for collaborative exploration into soil health, the soil food web, ecological risk of pest management strategies, and developing long-term solutions for regenerative ag systems. 

Madison County SWCD - $120,000
The grant funds will hire a full-time Urban Conservationist for a three-year time frame from Jan. 2025 through Dec. 2027 for the Madison County SWCD. This funding would provide the necessary means to empower Madison County SWCD to build district capacity and engage in conservation partnership efforts. Additionally, the funds will assist in developing an accountable case with empirical information and numbers to provide to the Madison County Council and Madison County Commissioners in an effort to obtain a permanent county funded full-time position.

Marion County SWCD- $100,000
The funds will leverage Marion County SWCD's federal Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grant to further the reach of their soil health program to ensure Indiana conservation planners beyond Marion County have the training and tools necessary to assist small farm practice implementation. These and other future training will help market Indiana's unique conservation tools nationally, and are striving to enter into a future multi-year agreement with NRCS to provide long term sustainability for the program beyond the timeframe of the proposed CWI grant 
CWI 2025, paired with SARE, will allow the SWCD to deliver a high-quality program that addresses the needs of the district in delivering assistance to urban and small farms.

Morgan County SWCD - $60,000
Morgan County SWCD will utilize the funds to purchase a new seed drill. The funds will also be used to promote the use of the drill through a cost-share program, “Seeding for Soil Health”, for cover crops and native habitats that would benefit soil health and water quality in Morgan County. 

Orange County SWCD - $125,000
The Clean Water Indiana funds will be used for cost-share program to increase conservation efforts and improve local water quality and soil health. The project, "Cultivating Clean Water, One Practice at a Time”, will allow and encourage local producers to expand on soil health and decrease nonpoint source pollutants entering waterways by reducing livestock run-off, stabilizing high-traffic livestock areas and increasing living cover within the project area.

Posey County SWCD- $84,000
Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick and Gibson Counties will continue to work together to encourage producers to plant cover crops addressing our local concerns of soil health and water quality. The partnering districts will add 4000 acres of cover crops.  Special emphasis will be placed on education, highly erodible land (HEL), and farmers new to our cost-share program. The district cash-match will pay $5/acre to farmers new to our program, $5/acre for diversified seed mixes of three plus, incentives for planting green by offering an additional $5/acre and up to $250 for perches or nesting boxes for raptors to assist with rodent control. 

Spencer County SWCD - $20,000
This project aims to reduce sediment and nutrient runoff in the pastures of Spencer County through promoting exclusionary livestock fencing for water quality, and prescribed grazing and rotational grazing for soil health and other pasture best management practices like cover crops.

The Nature Conservancy- $82,500
Announced by ISDA on Jan. 2, 2025, this project will incentivize farmers to utilize cover crops by reducing crop insurance premiums on 35,000 acres across 50 counties.  The project will provide eligible participants with a $5/acre premium discount on the following year's crop insurance invoice for every acre of cover crop enrolled and verified in the program.


Wayne County SWCD - $75,000
The Wayne County SWCD will educate on the numerous soil health benefits of planting cover crops and the need for healthy, abundant pollinators by establishing pollinator habitats. The goal of the program, "Cover It, Wayne County", is to establish at least 20 new acres of pollinator plantings and an anticipated 2,300 acres in cover crops.  

Wells County SWCD - $85,000
Wells and Huntington County SWCDs are partnering on a cost-share program for managing and removing invasive species and for seeding cover crops. The program will be open to private landowners, city, county and community parks. The goal of the program is to help educate citizens in the need to manage invasive species.