FARMERS CONSERVATION ALLIANCE

Causes: Unknown

Mission: About Farmers Conservation Alliance (FCA): FCA is a nonprofit, social enterprise in rural Oregon focused on green technologies and solutions that benefit both the environment and agriculture. FCA was created in 2006 to bring to market an innovative fish/irrigation screen technology that allows farmers to pull water from rivers or lakes to irrigate their crops. This technology, the Farmers Screen, reduces operation and maintenance costs for farmers, while protecting the lives of fish, especially endangered salmon species. FCA was licensed the Farmers Screen by the inventors, the Farmers Irrigation District of Hood River, Oregon, with the responsibility for developing and implementing a strategy to market, maximizing screen revenue, and investing screen profits into other solutions that benefit both fish and farms. Therefore, FCA is focused on green technologies, education programs and community solutions that benefit both the environment and agriculture and result in saving people money, conserving resources and maintaining quality of life. With more than 150,000 unscreened diversions in the Northwest alone, the Farmers Screen is an extraordinary opportunity to protect the lives of millions of fish and save farmers millions of dollars in reduced operation and maintenance costs. In addition to the Farmers Screen, some of FCA’s other programs include: • The Navigator: an 80-page guide featuring the incentives available to help people save money by saving resources • FCA Hydro: research and development of the potential for fish-friendly, small-scale hydro projects on currently diverted water • Ag Efficiencies: supporting landowners and irrigation districts in finding partners and funding to implement projects that will save energy and water as well as dollars • Rural Roots: celebration of the rural leaders of the sustainability movement and their work. To date, FCA has installed 19 Farmers Screens, restored over 95 miles of stream to safe fish passage, converted over 211 cubic feet per second (cfs) to fish friendly diverted water for agriculture and hydropower, saved landowners more than $317,000 in reduced operation and maintenance costs, and invested more than $135,000 into outreach campaigns that benefit rural Oregon. By 2017, FCA is working to: install 750 Farmers Screens, convert 7,500 cfs to fish friendly diversions, support the production of 200 MW of environmentally friendly, community-scale energy, restore 2500 miles of rivers for fish habitat and passage, save communities $2,500,000 in avoided energy and water associated costs, and invest more than $2,500,000 in social entrepreneurs.