On August 24, 2022 Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be awarding up to $300 million for “Increasing Land, Capital and Market Access” projects aimed at helping underserved producers.
According to the USDA, funding will be directed to organizations “that will develop and run programs that are designed to align with and respond to land, capital, and market access needs of the target audience while concurrently providing wraparound technical assistance to ensure that program participants have the information, training, and customized support they require.”
Beneficiaries must be “underserved” producers, which are defined as including veterans, limited-resource producers, beginning farmers and ranchers, and/or farmers, ranchers and forest landowners living in high poverty areas.
The deadline to apply for these funds is November 18, 2022.
We know this is soon, and we want to ensure that organizations in our ecosystem, particularly BIPOC-led and BIPOC-serving organizations, have the assistance they need to submit successful applications.
Over the next several weeks, Young Farmers will be hiring grant writers to support organizations with limited capacity in applying for this new funding opportunity.
If you are interested in applying, please fill out this survey (disponible en Español) to help us learn more about your eligibility and need for support. Even if you are not planning to apply, please take this survey so we can understand why and communicate barriers to accessing this funding to the USDA.
Who is eligible to apply:
- State, County, City, Local, Territorial, and Township governments
- Public and not-for-profit institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)3 status with the IRS, including Foundations and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Native American Tribal governments (Federally or State recognized.)
- Native American Tribal governments, organizations, and financial institutions
Individuals, non-domestic entities, and private, for-profit organizations are not eligible to apply to this funding opportunity.
Even if you are not sure if your organization will apply for these funds, we recommend that you apply now for a SAM registration number if your organization does not have one, as this is an application requirement and SAM.gov registrations are taking longer to process due to high demand.
Please reach out to land@youngfarmers.org with any questions about this program.