Sustainable Agriculture Grants Available

Contact: Media contact: Richard Kersbergen, Extension Educator, 207-342-5971 or 800-287-1426

ORONO– Are you a farmer with a great idea for a better way to grow a crop, market a product or engage members of your community in strengthening local agriculture?  Would a little more time (or money) help you to follow up on that idea?  If so, you may want to apply for a farmer/grower grant offered by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (NE-SARE).

In 2003, 52 of 132 northeast region applicants were awarded a total of $268,744. Individual awards ranged from $1,555 to the maximum of $10,000. The average grant was for $5,200. In Maine, eight successful projects  received 19 percent of the funds.

In a farmer/grower grant proposal, farmers can request funds to pay themselves or employees for time spent on the project or to buy materials or rent equipment. Travel expenses, telephone, postage and services such as soil testing or consulting are also fundable, if directly related to the project.  However, these grants will not pay for normal operating expenses or for capital expenses, like buying land, tractors, machinery or improvements to buildings.

According to Richard Kersbergen of University of Maine Cooperative Extension Waldo County office, farmer/grower grants are intended to generate information that lots of farmers can use. They are not meant to help an individual farmer develop something solely for their own benefit.

This year at Maine’s Farmer to Farmer Conference starting Oct. 31 in Bar Harbor, Maine, Dale Riggs from New York will talk about what makes a successful application.  Dale has been hired by Northeast SARE to help coordinate the Farmer/Grower Grant Program.  For details on the conference, check out the website.

Says Bob Muth, a vegetable farmer in Williamstown, N.J., and a member of the Administrative Council of the Northeast SARE program:  “These SARE grants are a great opportunity for farmers — unlike so many other programs, this one is really aimed at helping ‘the little guy’ solve problems.”

After testing their ideas, farmers are required to share the results. Funding is available for this outreach portion of a farmer’s project. It doesn’t have to be fancy — in most cases a field day, a newsletter article or a presentation at a grower meeting is adequate, says Kersbergen. Cooperative Extension personnel will provide assistance.

Eligible farmers must be in the Northeast region that includes all of New England. Part time farmers can apply, but the operation must be engaged in commercial agriculture and sell products on a regular basis.

Grant applications include a budget sheet and six basic questions:

            1.  What do you want to do?

            2.  How will your project fit in with your farm operation?

            3.  What will your methods be?

            4.  How ill you measure your results?

            5.  How ill the results of your project help farmers in the Northeast?

            6.  What is your outreach plan?

Many of last year’s successful applicants worked with local Extension or other agency personnel on their proposals to think about the techniques they would use and how they would document their findings. Extension staff members are also listed as collaborators on many projects.

Farmers are not expected to replicate scientific research.  They are expected to have clear goals that relate to sustainable agriculture, a good plan of action and a commitment to document what happens and share those results.

For more information, or to get an application form, visit the website, or call Rick Kersbergen at the University of Maine, Cooperative Extension, Waldo County office, 1-800-287-1426 (in Maine) or 207-342-5971.

A list of all previous grants is available at www.sare.org. Some successful projects are below.

Maine and Maryland

            A farmer in Maine is working to start a local farmers’ market.  A group of farmers is looking to build local markets for their farm products, another is building a portable sheep milking parlor, and someone else is developing a marketing plan for organic yogurt. In Maryland, one project will assess how much value is added to pork by offering a pastured, additive-free product, and another is looking at the different grazing strategies to decrease internal sheep parasites.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire

            Farmer/grower grants are supporting the study of scallop aquaculture; the selection of heirloom tomato varieties for disease resistance; and a comparison of a flex-tine harrow, a star-hoe and more traditional implements for weed control in vegetables and berries.  New Hampshire’s projects are looking at ways to reclaim pasture for fruit and maple production, as well as the development of a handbook explaining safe and creative ways of selling dairy products at farmers’ markets.

New Jersey and New York

            Farmers are studying different no-till covers in blueberries and developing a mobile poultry processing unit that will serve a consortium of producers.  New York farmers are trying compost mounds for no-till pumpkins, vinegar as an herbicide in garlic and conversion of an Allis-Chalmers G tractor to electric power.  In Rhode Island, work will be done to test vegetables from Nigeria and to develop a database of seed sources.

Vermont

            Vermont farmers are determining the cost of producing fuel from waste vegetable oil to heat a greenhouse, evaluating the suitability of hardy grape cultivars developed in the upper Midwest and comparing different methods of sweet corn transplanting to see which is most economical.