TWDB Agricultural Water Conservation Program helps producers use water wisely Posted on October 15, 2025

The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) leads the state’s efforts to ensure a secure water future for Texas, and one key to fulfilling that mission is facilitating agricultural water conservation. It starts with the TWDB Agricultural Water Conservation Grants Program that was created by the 69th Texas Legislature in 1985 to promote water conservation in agriculture across the state.

The program offers financial assistance for projects that enhance irrigation efficiency, improve resilience to weather extremes and climate variability, and promote innovation in agriculture through grants and loans—primarily targeting rural areas of Texas where agriculture plays a crucial role in the local economy. Since its inception, the Agricultural Water Conservation Grants Program has funded hundreds of projects that have saved thousands of acre-feet of water. For more information about ag grants, previously funded projects, and the application process, visit the TWDB website or email agconservation@twdb.texas.gov.

Who are this year’s grant recipients?

In July 2025, the TWDB approved $1,500,000 in grant funding through the program to nine eligible political subdivisions and state agencies. The fiscal year 2025 grant cycle included two funding categories. Category 1 provides funding to support the implementation of various agricultural water conservation practices. Examples include

• the use of irrigation monitoring equipment and software,
• irrigation scheduling practices,
• improvements in irrigation conveyance efficiency,
• demonstrations,
• technology transfer, and
• regenerative agricultural practices.

Category 2 provides funding to help producers utilize remote sensing data to support estimates of agricultural water use for irrigation, and includes

• irrigated crop field boundary data (geospatial),
• improved special analysis tools, and
• training to incorporate the above into the estimation methodology.

This year, Cameron County Irrigation District No. 6 (CCID6) received $150,000 to purchase an aquatic harvester to collect and remove weeds from an irrigation system that supplies water to approximately 15,000 acres of farmland. Currently, the canals and resacas (abandoned channels of the Rio Grande used for storage and transmission of water) in the District are overgrown with aquatic vegetation, particularly water hyacinth. According to Frank A. Ferris, the District Engineer for CCID6, “the hyacinth increases water loss and impedes flow in the system, resulting in higher water levels and extended irrigation times.”

Ferris says that acquiring the harvester not only benefits his district but will also help other communities in the area determine if a harvester will benefit them as well. “All the irrigation districts downstream of the Donna Irrigation District Pump Station are affected by aquatic vegetation,” says Ferris, “and because the District will keep track of operation costs as well as efficiency to create a final report, the surrounding communities can utilize that report to determine if purchasing their own harvester will be beneficial.”

Another grant for $300,000 was awarded to the Edwards Aquifer Authority (EAA), a regional water management agency that manages and protects the Edwards Aquifer. The Edwards Aquifer is a major groundwater system that serves approximately 2.5 million people living in south central Texas, and the EAA is using the grant money to bolster its Irrigation Efficiency Improvement program.

This program helps producers purchase new water-saving irrigation equipment, and the EAA puts that money to good use by helping producers upgrade old sprinklers or transition to more efficient subsurface drip irrigation systems. The program also helps producers make the shift from flood furrow irrigation to far more efficient sprinkler systems. According to Isabel Martinez, Senior Permit and Conservation Coordinator for the EAA, making the upgrade from flood to sprinkler irrigation results in “a 30 to 40 percent efficiency improvement in water application and water use.” Those are some significant gains, and the TWDB makes it easy, says Martinez. “TWDB staff have helped me understand what's required, and it's been a streamlined, easy process.”

These are just two of the projects receiving grant funding this year from the TWDB Agricultural Water Conservation Grants Program. In concert with awarding financial assistance, the TWDB also helps producers understand how much water is being used for agricultural irrigation.

Estimating agricultural water use

The TWDB annually estimates agricultural irrigation water use for every county in the state by collecting information from multiple sources, although the agency does not have the authority to require producers to report actual irrigation water use. The primary sources are crop data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture - Farm Service Agency and surface water irrigation diversion releases provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The TWDB also works with groundwater conservation districts to review the estimates and suggest adjustments based on local expertise.

Learn more about this process in the Water Use Estimation Methodology or by visiting the TWDB Water Use Survey, which contains all the Historical Water Use Estimates, as well as data specific to the Historical Agriculture Irrigation Water Use Estimates. 

By equipping producers with knowledge about water usage and supporting conservation efforts through financial assistance, the TWDB Agricultural Water Conservation programs play a vital role in ensuring Texas producers have access to the water they need.

This article is posted in Financial Assistance / Conservation .