IIC is supporting advances in innovation and adoption

Colorado State University’s Source online news features IIC’s work and progress (article published 12.09.22)

As water becomes increasingly scarce in the American West, a group of university and industry partners has been pursuing innovations in the largest use of this key resource: agricultural irrigation. 

For almost five years, the Irrigation Innovation Consortium has supported industry-university collaboration to improve irrigation technologies, encourage their adoption and boost effective water management in agricultural and landscape contexts.

The history of IIC

A $5 million grant from the nonprofit Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research in 2018 has underpinned the consortium’s research and engagement activities. IIC has selected projects proposed through annual competitive research calls to support the co-development and testing of technologies, decision support systems, and advanced irrigation management strategies. Public and private partners bring matching support to their projects, resulting in a total investment of over $10 million in IIC research and outreach activities. More recently, IIC has also been able to leverage knowledge gains and its network to attract additional state and federal funding to expand its reach and impact. 

The IIC, headquartered at Colorado State University, includes four other land-grant universities as founding members: the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, and California State University-Fresno. Original founding industry partners are Aqua Engineering, Irrigation Association, JAIN Irrigation Inc, LI-COR, CSU STRATA, Lindsay Corporation, Northern Water Conservation District, Valmont Industries and Rubicon Water. 

Over time, IIC’s network has grown to include more than 165 researchers, research technicians and students, and more than 50 private companies and public entities. (See IIC’s current partner list here.) …This article continues on to cover IIC’s history, irrigation innovation needs and drivers, work to overcome the advance irrigation adoption gap, and highlights from research project and engagement involving CSU and other researchers working in collaboration with industry partners.