About the Agricultural Chipping Voucher Program:
The District was awarded funding by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2021 Targeted Airshed Grant (TAG) Program to develop a Pilot Agricultural Chipping Program. The grant award will provide financial incentives to farmers to encourage chipping of agricultural materials as an alternative to open burning.
Note: If you would like to apply to receive voucher funding for multiple non-contiguous parcels of land, please submit separate applications for each non-contiguous parcel.
Voucher Funding Amounts:
- $600 per acre for chipping projects with soil incorporation; or
- $500 per acre for chipping projects without soil incorporation.
Applicants are eligible to receive funding for a maximum of 80 acres.
General Eligibility Criteria:
- Acreage must be located in Yolo County or the northeastern portion of Solano County, including Dixon, Vacaville, and Rio Vista (see map below or email grants@ysaqmd.org to determine if your acreage address is located within the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District);
- Applicant must have a current District burn permit for the acreage referenced in the application;
- Applicant must be a commercial agricultural operation;
- Applicant must not have chipped, nor can begin chipping, any of the acres of agricultural material referenced in their application until they have received an executed voucher;
- Applicant must not have made a payment toward the chipping service to be completed prior to executed voucher being received;
- Applications are limited to orchard pull outs (Almond, walnut, or a crop type with comparable emission reductions);
- Land conversions intended for non-agricultural purposes are not eligible for funding;
- Applicant must certify continued agricultural use of the property, for at minimum 3 years; and
- Final disposition of agricultural material must be used for either soil incorporation, on-site land application, or off-site beneficial re-use (mulch, composting, land application, etc.) and cannot be burned or used in any combustion processes such as biomass power generation, air curtain burners, etc.
District Boundaries:
The map below shows the boundaries of the District. In order to be eligible to participate in this program, households must be located within the District.

If you live in Solano County outside of the city limits of Dixon, Rio Vista, or Vacaville, please enter your address into the following map to determine if your household is located within the District:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?url=https://caltrans-gis.dot.ca.gov/arcgis/rest/services/CHhqenvi/DEA_Air_Quality/FeatureServer/0&source=sd.