The Bay Area Air Quality Management District in California announced the deployment of seven zero-emission tractors at Bay Area farms as part of an approximately $1-million grant through the Funding Agricultural Reduction Measures for Emission Reductions (FARMER) program to demonstrate zero-emission technology in Bay Area agricultural operations.

The program is the first-of-its-kind in California, where moving from diesel-powered to zero-emission equipment across all sectors of the economy is a priority to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, criteria pollutants and toxic emissions.

In 2020, the Air District awarded Monarch Tractor $480,000 and Solectrac by Ideanomics $514,688 for demonstration projects under the FARMER program. The grants support the advancement of battery-powered electric tractors, which are not yet commercially available on a large scale.

Since the FARMER program’s founding in 2017, the Air District has awarded more than $4 million in grants to Bay Area agricultural operations to reduce toxic diesel emissions. The program aims to test the viability of emerging technologies to determine if they can serve the same function as the diesel-powered equipment they would replace.

Partnering farms where the tractors were deployed and data will be collected include Old School Vineyards in Napa, Arroyo Lindo Vineyard in Sonoma, Wente Vineyards in Livermore, The Mushroom Farm in Pescadero and Crocker Estate in St. Helena.

The FARMER Program is part of California Climate Investments.