The Water Resilience Toolkit provides a process for understanding your growing site’s water context and identifying strategies that fit your specific conditions, including your climate, soil, and other environmental constraints. We’ve created this practical, grower-centered toolkit to provide clear, actionable steps for exploring and implementing water-resilient strategies on farms. This toolkit is based on a decade-plus of participatory research started with the Oregon State University Dry Farming Program and through continued exploratory trials with DFI.

This toolkit is designed for vegetable, fruit, and specialty crop growers at any scale — from market gardens to larger operations. That said, there is no one-size-fits-all prescription for water resilience; instead, you’ll find questions, tools, and examples so you can identify approaches that fit your specific crops, soils, and context. A practice that works on a deep silt loam in the Willamette Valley may perform differently on a shallow sandy loam, or on a dry-farmed plot in the Sacramento Valley. The toolkit provides a process for determining what’s worth trying or adapting on your specific site.

If you’re entirely new to this concept, before you dive deeper into the Water Resilience Toolkit, we suggest you explore the introductory resources linked below.

You can move through the toolkit in the order we’ve outlined, or jump straight to the article that meets your current need. Along the way, you’ll find prompts to document what you observe and places where you may want to connect with other growers and facilitators.

For those who are interested in how to engage and facilitate other growers and service providers in the work of water resilience, check out our Facilitator’s Toolkit.

If you’re new to this concept, before you dive into the Water Resilience Toolkit, we suggest you explore the introductory resources here:

RESOURCES

What is Dry Farming? – – Dry Farming Institute

Water Management and Conservation Resources — — Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Service

Irrigation Technology Program | Management Technical Guides — — OSU Ag Water Program Resources: This 10-part curriculum gives you the tools you need to conserve water, reduce energy use and save money.

Drought and Water Scarcity (link opens a PDF file) — — Integrated Drought Management Program: The terms ‘water scarcity’ and ‘drought’ are often used interchangeably, despite their subtle but important differences with regards to water management. The aim of this publication is to inform stakeholders about the different characteristics of drought and water scarcity and how they can be interdependent (with clear examples of each).