In 2023 and 2024, LOR’s Field Work initiative invested more than $600,000 into research that explored innovative approaches to using water in agriculture.
Facing drought and an ever-increasing demand for agricultural food products, Western farmers and ranchers are on the frontlines of the fight to solve water challenges. Too often, however, funding for innovative techniques that might improve water usage is hard to access and slow to reach the experts on the ground. So in 2023, LOR launched Field Work. Field Work is LOR’s search for innovative answers to persistent problems that plague rural communities. Our goal with each Field Work effort is to get money quickly into the hands of the people on the ground—in communities where LOR works or in other rural parts of the region—who have innovative ideas.
In 2023 and 2024, Field Work’s focus was on water and agriculture. Farmers and ranchers in rural parts of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming were eligible for up to $10,000 to implement creative water projects on their land (think: improved water efficiency, water reliability, water quality, crop yield or crop diversification, and labor efficiency). LOR awarded more than $500,000 in 2023, and in 2024, with generous support from CoBank, Field Work provided an additional $95,000 in funding.
