Young Farmer Grant Program in the US

Deadline: 13-Jan-23

The National Young Farmers Coalition is partnering with Chipotle to offer $5,000 grants to 75 young farmers and ranchers to support them in building careers in agriculture.

In the fourth year of the program, Young Farmers is excited to announce that Young Farmers will be growing the program to offer 75 grants to a new cohort of young farmers and ranchers in 2023.

In addition to growing the number of grants Young Farmers is offering this spring, Young Farmers is adding an additional lens to the program of regenerating soil and community to celebrate the deep and visionary care for land and community that the next generation of farmers embodies.

What can a Young Farmer Grant do?

• Young Farmer Grants are designed to provide a flexible financial boost to young farmers building long-term careers in agriculture. This fund can be used for anything that will further your goals as a farmer, even if that means just getting started. The goal of this fund is to provide financial assistance for any cost that currently limits your ability to start, run, or grow your operation in the way you’d like.
• These grants are available to farmers of all races and gender identities. To ensure that Young Farmers’s grants are contributing to ending inequity in access to agricultural careers, Young Farmers commits to providing a minimum of 50% of its grants to Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, and 50% of grants to female-identifying, non-binary, and trans farmers. These are not mutually exclusive identity categories and should not be understood as adding up to 100% of available grants.
• Grant funding may support completing a project, purchasing a new piece of equipment, covering operating costs such as seeds and compost, building new infrastructure, attending a farmer training program or conference, hiring additional farm labor, or covering personal finances that stand in the way of farm success, including but not limited to childcare, housing, or student loan payments. Funds, once awarded, may be used to match other grant opportunities.

Eligibility Criteria

• Grant recipients will be required to submit two reports:
  • A progress report between in the summer of 2023 detailing progress toward goals and any potential changes to original plan.
  • A final brief written report in October 2023 detailing how the funds were used.
• Grant recipients are required to spend the entirety of their $5,000 grant before their report is due in October 2023.
  • Savings accounts for later use are not an eligible application of these funds.
• Applicants must submit a photo with their application. If the applicant is selected, their name and photo will be included in a public announcement of grant recipients on the Chipotle and the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation websites.
• The National Young Farmers Coalition, Chipotle, and the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation will work with some grant recipients to share their stories nationally through their communications channels. Grant recipients have the option to opt out of this coverage.
• Please note that this grant is taxable income.

Evaluation

Reviewers will be considering four main criteria in evaluating applications:

• Contribution to Farmer Goals:
  • These funds are designed to help you get closer to achieving your goals in your career as a farmer. A strong application will illustrate how the use of these funds will contribute to the long-term vision you outline in your application. A strong illustration directly links the steps you make with this funding to your options and potential choices down the road in your farm business.
• Addressing Challenges and Barriers to Success:
  • Priority of selection will be given to applicants who can illustrate how these funds will be used to address a particular challenge they are facing in moving their business forward and the results or changes they expect to see with this funding. Strong applications will illustrate a cause and effect of what this grant funding would allow them to do for their operations and careers.
• Sustainability – Regenerating Soil and Community:
  • One requirement of this grant is that you are making, or intend to make, steps on your operation to preserve and potentially even improve the natural resources of the land you steward for future generations. Your ability to illustrate how you currently implement, or plan to implement, sustainable and regenerative farming practices and/or ethics will contribute to the strength of your application.
• Financial Need:
  • Because a $5,000 grant with few restrictions on its use is such a unique opportunity to meet costs unmet by other funding options, Young Farmers will prioritize applicants for whom this money will make a significant difference in their financial ability to meet their goals and for those requests for which other funding opportunities are difficult, or impossible to access.

For more information, visit Young Farmers.