2022 ALTERNATIVE MANURE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The Budget Act of 2021 (SB 170, Chapter 240) appropriated $32 million from the California State Budget to CDFA for methane emissions reductions from dairy and livestock operations. CDFA will make approximately $12.2 million (40% of $30.4 million) available for the AMMP, which includes an allocation for technical assistance grants under AB 2377. The Dairy Digester Research and Development Program (DDRDP) will have approximately $18.2 million available to support digesters that reduce methane emissions from dairy operations. CDFA will fund up to 100% of the total project cost with a maximum grant award of $750,000 per project. Matching funds are strongly encouraged.  The maximum project term is two (2) years. Grant funds cannot be expended before January 1, 2023, or after December 31, 2024. CDFA may offer an award different than the amount requested. The project site must be located on a commercial California dairy or livestock operation. Individuals receiving grant award funds must be located in California with a physical California business address. A dairy operation is defined as an entity that operates a dairy herd, which produces milk or cream commercially, and whose bulk milk or bulk cream is received or handled by any distributor, manufacturer, or any nonprofit cooperative association of dairy producers. A livestock operation is defined as an entity raising farm animals such ascattle, poultry, goats, sheep, swine, and horses. AMMP supports several project types for which there are methods to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. To be eligible, the current baselinemanure management practices must include the anaerobic decomposition of volatile solids stored in a lagoon or other predominantly liquid anaerobic environment. Methane is produced when volatile manure solids are stored in wet, anaerobic conditions; consequently, conditions that lead to methane production must currently exist at a dairy or livestock operation in order for methane emission reductions to be achieved through an AMMP project. While solid separation or conversion from flush to dry scrape manure collection can be a critical component of an AMMP project, these practices are not considered to be stand-alone projects because they relate only to how manure is separated or collected. In order to calculate GHG emissions and emission reductions, it is also necessary to identify how the separated or collected manure volatile solids will be treated and/or stored (e.g., open solar drying, composting in vessel). Storage or further treatment will always take place with separated orcollected solids, and applicants are required to identify what this will be. The storage or further treatment of the collected solids produces methane to varying degrees, as determined by the Methane Conversion Factor (MCF) for each practice. Applicants should use the definitions provided to determine which practice most closely describes how they will manage separated or scraped manure volatile solids. For more information, please refer to the 2022 AMMP Request for Grant Applications.