04/08/2021

Honey Lake Valley RCD (HLVRCD) was recently awarded two seperate grants from the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) for the 2021 granting periods totaling $106,000 for projects in Lassen County, CA.

NACD Urban Agriculture Conservation Grant

HLVRCD was one of 20 conservation districts across 14 states to receive funding. NACD and NRCS established the Urban Agriculture Conservation Grant Initiative in 2016 to help conservation districts and their partners provide much-needed technical assistance for community-oriented agricultural projects in both urban and rural contexts. 

This Lassen County area partnership project will help to bring awareness to culturally significant native plants and help to increase food sovereignty through education and management of introduced, heritage varieties of producing fruit trees and shrubs. Through the use of workshops, an indigenous foods and medicinal plants garden, demonstration orchard, and fruit tree mapping of the area, HLVRCD hopes to build community awareness about the native tribes local to our area, and the urban agriculture that Lassen County has the potential to support.

NACD Technical Assistance Grant

'In 2017, NACD entered into the first of a series of cooperative agreements with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide funding to further enhance conservation district technical assistance across the nation. The agreement specified that the funds would be awarded to conservation districts to hire staff where additional capacity is needed to improve customer service and reduce workload pressure.' (NACD)

The HLVRCD was awarded 2020 NACD grant funds & provided important match funds to hire a Resource Technician to assist NRCS-Susanville with their heavy CSP workload. HLVRCD was granted additional funds for the 2021 granting period to continue to support meeting the community's demand for increased conservation technical assistance and the ensuing utilization of the CSP and EQIP programs, thereby expanding resource conservation work on the ground in Lassen County, CA.