Climate resiliency: research farms: grant program

The law helps put up to $15 million in voter-approved bond funds to work on agricultural research facilities designed to improve climate resilience. It also allows grants to support both new farms and upgrades to existing ones.

What the law does ​

• Allows the State Department of Education to advance payments under research-farm agreements with the Department of Food and Agriculture in fiscal years 2026–27 and 2027–28.
• Exempts those agreements from Director of General Services approval.
• Defines eligible research-farm development to include building new farms and maintaining, altering, or improving eligible existing farms.
• Makes up to $15 million available, if appropriated by the Legislature, for grants of no more than $1 million per institution.
• Requires funded farms to be constructed and maintained using environmentally sustainable infrastructure practices.

Who it affects ​

• Public postsecondary institutions designated by the University of California or California State University as Agricultural Experiment Stations or Agricultural Research Institutes.
• The State Department of Education and the Department of Food and Agriculture.
• Agricultural researchers using qualifying research farms.

Context ​

Funding comes from Proposition 4, the 2024 voter-approved climate-resiliency bond.