Apply by November 12, 2024!
Farmer Rancher Grants provide opportunities for farmers to solve problems on the farm using innovative sustainable agriculture practices. Projects can focus on research or education and demonstration. Grant requests can be up to $30,000 and projects must be completed within 3 years. A technical advisor is required and should be enlisted at the early stages of the proposal development.
Northeast SARE offers grants to farmers to explore new concepts in sustainable agriculture conducted through experiments, surveys, prototypes, on-farm demonstrations or other research and education techniques. Farmer Grant projects address issues that affect farming with long-term sustainability in mind. Competitive proposals explore new ideas and techniques or apply known ideas in new ways or with new communities. A wide variety of topics can be funded by Northeast SARE, including marketing and business, crop production, raising livestock, aquaculture, social sustainability, climate-smart agriculture practices, urban and Indigenous agriculture and much more.
To be eligible to apply for a farmer grant, you must be a commercial farm business owner or farm employee:
- Located in the Northeast region, described on page 1.
- A commercial farm from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year. For more information see, “Northeast SARE’s Definition of Farm” found at: www.northeastsare.org/FarmerGrant. This grant program accepts all types and scales of farms - large or small scale, organic or conventional, urban or rural, full- or part-time, etc.
- If you are applying as a farm employee, you must complete a Grant Commitment Form and ensure that it includes both your signature and the farm owner’s signature verifying they will be financially responsible for the project.
- Farmers on farms affiliated with an institution or a nonprofit organization are also eligible to apply as long as the farm produces and sells agricultural products that meet the farm definition above. For these proposals, you must use the name of the 501(c) organization in the proposal and complete a Grant Commitment Form.
- Current grant recipients who are behind in their reporting cannot apply. If you have a grant project that has ended or is near completion, finish it and file your final report; if your project is still in progress, make sure you have submitted a recent annual report.
- Proposals are limited to one per farm per year
