As part of a new statewide program offering more than $80 million in grants to address climate change, Cal Poly has been awarded two separate grants of $1.75 million and $183,000 to take impactful action to reduce carbon emissions, improve resource management and advance long-term, sustainable agricultural practices.

Among the awards, Cal Poly’s Initiative for Climate Leadership and Resilience received $1.7 million towards strategies around sustainable land use and agricultural farming techniques. Farm operators, California Resource Conservation Districts and Cal Poly will partner to work toward sequestering carbon, reducing water consumption, decreasing fertilizer use/runoff, increasing economic yield and making farms more resilient to climate change.  

The two-year grant, which will run indefinitely pending further funding, will involve three different colleges with Cal Poly and dozens of students and faculty. Cal Poly’s program also will seek to partner with other state universities and organizations to help grow and expand the grant program. The benefit to agricultural farmers will be the ability to lease expensive equipment such as a biochar kiln (to make nutrient-rich charcoal from organic waste) at negligible fees, as well as guidance with streamlining permitting and establishing long-term sustainable practices that help maintain the quality of soil, Pearse said.

“We have two faculty from agribusiness that are going to be doing case studies to determine economic benefits, like crop yields, but also the benefits that come from not having to do permitting and all those indirect costs and externalities,” Pearse said. “This program is designed to grow and scale, and I’m so excited about the educational side of sharing techniques, monitoring and equipment that will help advance farming, both economically and environmentally.” 

Students from across Cal Poly’s campus will participate in the work as researchers, collaborators and through course work that will help design and implement effective models for sustainability. 

The grant awards initiative provided an additional $183,000 for Cal Poly Assistant Professor Yamina Pressler, a soil ecologist in the Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences Department, to work in conjunction with faculty at Cal Poly Humboldt on research focused on establishing drought resilient grassland restoration networks throughout California.  

“The project aims to promote biodiversity restoration in California grasslands by initiating a resource and seed sharing network, evaluating trait-based restoration, and creating a climate-smart toolkit for restoration practitioners,” Pressler said.  

The grant will provide Learn by Doing opportunities for Cal Poly students in both field and laboratory research settings. Students will be involved in conducting ecological assessments of coastal grasslands, evaluating plant roots traits, collecting soil samples, and quantifying soil metrics. “These efforts will contribute to the development of a climate-smart toolbox for restoration practitioners,” Pressler said.