An Omaha Maya organization has received one of five $15,000 grants from the nonprofit GreenLatinos.

Some 85 organizations applied for the grant from the Justicia y Equidad Fund for "under-resourced Latino environmental justice organizations." Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim (CMPI) is an Omaha-based nonprofit supporting Maya and other Indigenous communities in Nebraska.

Lola Marina Juan Tomas, CMPI interim executive director, said about half of the estimated 10,000 Maya in Nebraska are in the Omaha area. She said the grant will support their Maya Regeneration Project.

According to Juan Tomas, this involves connecting the "profound wisdom" of the Maya with regenerative agriculture. She said CMPI also helps Maya entrepreneurs.

"CMPI is honored to represent the Maya community in Nebraska and throughout the heartland as a lead organization for the Heartland Regional Food Business Center," Juan Tomas explained.

The Heartland Regional Food Business Center is one of 12 such centers the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded in 2023. Their mission is to help small and mid-sized businesses involved in food production and distribution. CMPI helps Maya and other Indigenous entrepreneurs in the region access resources and opportunities in the food industry.

Juan Tomas said as one of their youth training programs, CMPI collaborates with the environmental nonprofit Omaha Permaculture to grow community gardens on formerly vacant Omaha lots.

"In this project, we will involve the youth for restoration of the culture, the language, and knowledge about the land's importance in our life," she continued.

CMPI also has a Maya Community Center Garden at its South Omaha headquarters. It has received tentative approval for a USDA Land Access Capital Grant to buy land in Nebraska, where the organization will develop a Maya Regenerative Farm.

Juan Tomas stressed the central role community plays in CMPI's mission, saying, "Every project supports the community. Everyone, every community, is welcome in our community center in South Omaha."

Most of Nebraska's Maya are from Guatemala, of Q'anjob'al heritage. Other states boasting sizeable Maya communities include Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts and South Carolina.


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A Utah grant program is aiming to incentivize farmers to optimize their water use.

Historically, Utah agriculture has accounted for up to 80% of the state's water consumption, but the state's Agricultural Water Optimization Program is an initiative using state and federal funds to lower the financial barriers for ag producers to modernize and update their irrigation equipment.

Hannah Freeze, Agricultural Water Optimization Program manager for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, said it covers half the cost of purchasing new, more efficient equipment. She explained the Utah Legislature and the federal government have allocated $276 million for the program and describes it as a step in the right direction, especially with agriculture being what she called "nonnegotiable."

"It is essential to everything that we do in life," Freeze pointed out. "As we continue to use the scarce water that we have for agricultural purposes, this program allows our producers to be the best stewards of that precious resource. Our farmers are truly the first environmentalists."

Freeze added the program boils down to helping farmers use the scarce water the state has to still be able to meet agricultural demands. She noted it was only after capturing federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act that the program "got a big shot in the arm." Since 2019, the program continues to see increased interest but has only been able to fund around half of the projects in the state.

The 2025 application period runs through Feb. 28.

Freeze stressed the biggest requirement to be eligible for the program is for a project to be directly tied to agricultural water use. She recognized irrigation needs across the state of Utah are diverse.

"We try to be open to all of the different needs based on the regions that the producers are in," Freeze added. "The real hard stop is, you've got to have 'ag water' to be able to participate. And other than that, we try to be accommodating with all the other projects."

Freeze emphasized the program has committed hundreds of millions of government dollars to help optimize water use and while the state helps administer half of the cost of the infrastructure projects, the other half comes from the farmers themselves.

"If that doesn't say they are stepping up, they are here to help, they are at the table and they understand the role that they play as we optimize water use in the West, I don't know what does," Freeze concluded.


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A company working to create sustainable energy sources is investing in corn to make jet fuel, which it said burns far cleaner than the traditional, petroleum-based version.

Some Iowa farmers see it as a market for their crops in addition to the ethanol they already create.

Alyssa Shousse, a corn farmer near Griswold, sees producing jet fuel with her corn as an opportunity to create sustainable energy from her crops beyond ethanol and on a much bigger scale. Jets used nearly 100 billion gallons of fuel last year.

"It's an absolutely insane number," Shousse acknowledged. "If there's a better way that we can break into that market, make it a little bit more renewable, I think any of that is good for making a better impact for the environment."

Supporters want federal lawmakers to create incentives to encourage more sustainable airline fuel production in Iowa and across the U.S., perhaps creating incentives mirroring the support ethanol receives.

Patrick Gruber is CEO of the fuel development firm Gevo, which has facilities in Iowa and is part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Coalition. He said it is competitive with traditional jet fuel and far more environmentally friendly.

"A petro-jet spews out about 22 pounds of CO2 per gallon," Gruber pointed out. "We can eliminate that whole footprint of 22 pounds."

Supporters argued sustainable aviation fuel burns cleaner than traditional jet fuel. They want to expand the practice to include more sectors of agriculture. Critics have countered the effects of agricultural-based jet fuel are still up in the air.


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Some Wisconsin farmers are now able to see the environmental effects from their sustainable farming practices through a new conservation program that hopes to expand across the Midwest. Farmers for Sustainable Food recently wrapped up the inaugural year of its Climate Smart Program.

Lauren Brey, managing director of Farmers for Sustainable Food, said after one year, the farmers enrolled across four states reduced nearly 50,000 tons of CO2 equivalents.

"That's the kind of impact that we're seeing just on 53 farms," she said. "So we're really looking forward to years two and beyond when we'll have double, quadruple that number of farmers participating and data to share."

Through a partnership with Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative and a $50 million federal grant, participating farmers are compensated for their time and data sharing.

They also receive support to understand the metrics and outcomes of the conservation practices they're using on their farms -- like how the reductions of carbon dioxide equivalents being made from year one of the program are equivalent to powering more than 6,600 U.S. homes for one year - or removing more than 11,000 passenger vehicles from the road.

"What's cool about it is that farmers are already implementing best-management practices on their cropland, on their farms when they're caring for their animals... and now, through our project, we're able to help quantify what those best-management practices mean for environmental outcomes," Brey continued.

Year one encompassed more than 100,000 acres of cropland with the use of more than 71,000 cattle. The five-year project will continue through 2028, but Brey said they are already looking for additional funding to extend it and reach more farmers in the upper Midwest.


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