Calling for Farmer Grant Proposals
The Call for 2023 Farmer Grants is now available. Approximately $750,000 has been allocated to fund projects for this cycle of Farmer Grants. Awards typically range from $5,000 to $30,000, depending upon a project’s complexity and duration.
https://www.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/Northeast-SARE-Farmer-Grant-Call-for-Proposals.pdf
Farmer Grants help farmers try new things that could improve their operations, according to Grant Coordinator Candice Huber.
“Farmers are natural problem solvers,” Huber says. “They see something that needs to be done and build a solution. Northeast SARE provides an opportunity for farmers to try solutions that improve quality of life, profitability, and environmental impact.”
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 more. Last year, the cap for Farmer Grants was increased from $15,000 to $30,000.
“We’re looking for people to pay a reasonable wage for their work on a grant project,” Huber says. "The additional funding is also more realistic for complex projects with more collaboration, education, and replication to increase the strength of results."
The online system for submitting proposals will open on Oct 1, 2022. Proposals are due no later than November 15, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. EST.
An informational webinar featuring multiple Farmer Grant recipient Tommye Lou Rafes will take place at 12:00 p.m. on October 4, 2022.
Rafes says the benefits of a SARE grant go beyond financial support. There's an emotional support to knowing that your problem is valid and worth spending time to study.
"Everyday I walk around and I have questions and I have problems," she says. "To have someone say 'Tommye, this is valuable and this is something other people can learn from and hopefully this will help other people'... that was a big validation for me."
View the Call for Farmer Grant Proposals : https://www.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/Northeast-SARE-Farmer-Grant-Call-for-Proposals.pdf
Register for the Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6516611235851/WN_RoG_IkMmSDGsduZwmFgKkA