The Energy Title (IX) of the Food Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Farm Bill), contains a new section (9006) that directs the USDA to implement a renewable energy and energy efficiency improvement grant and loan program. The Farm Bill enables the USDA to determine the implementation strategies for Section 9006. Based on our public interest goal of increasing energy efficiency on farms, ACEEE seeks to apply our contacts and expertise in energy efficiency program design to recommend certain actions to the USDA for streamlined and effective delivery of program funding.
Our first step in this process has been to identify what programs are already available. We undertook a survey to summarize available energy efficiency and renewable energy programs for small farms (see attached). The announcement of the survey effort was sent to ACEEE's extensive list of contacts. This was not an exhaustive study, so an extensive follow-up to the initial survey was not implemented. Despite the limited nature of this effort, many of the program responses received were from outside ACEEE's contact base, indicating that there was broad communication of the survey's existence to the agricultural program community. The remainder of this statement highlights the results of the survey as well as ACEEE's general program recommendations.
