Grants for Farmers

Pollinator Habitat Incentive Program is sponsored by American Farmland Trust and Syngenta. This program offers incentive payments for planting new acres of pollinator habitat in the Midwest region. While primarily focused on habitat creation, AI could potentially be used in conjunction with this for site selection, monitoring, or impact assessment.

USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (New York State) is sponsored by New York Farm Viability Institute (NYFVI) in partnership with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (AGM). The USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, administered in New York State by NYFVI, supports research, education, and innovation that enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of specialty crops across New York State. Specialty crops include fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, nursery crops, and related products. The program prioritizes projects addressing production challenges, improving pest and disease management, expanding research, and strengthening environmental sustainability. Small businesses can benefit as part of projects that broadly impact the specialty crop industry.

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) - Arkansas is sponsored by USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). EQIP provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers and non-industrial forest managers to implement conservation practices. The program addresses national priorities such as reductions of nonpoint source pollution, conservation of ground and surface water resources, reduction of emissions, and reduction in soil erosion. Applications are accepted on a continuous basis, with specific ranking dates for funding cycles.

Climate Resilient Farming (CRF) Grant Program is sponsored by New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. Funded through New York's Environmental Protection Fund, this program helps agricultural producers implement projects that mitigate climate change impacts, protect and enhance soil health, and protect water quality across New York State. While focused broadly on resiliency and water/soil protection, eligible participants can leverage these tracks for on-farm water management and soil preservation.

Next Generation Farmer Fund is sponsored by National Young Farmers Coalition. Provides direct financial support and technical assistance to young and beginning farmers and ranchers (40 and under) to put one to four new conservation practices into action on their land, such as cover cropping, rotational grazing, improved irrigation, renewable energy infrastructure, or pollinator plantings.

NOSTRADAMUS Open Call 1 is EU-funded cascade funding (financial support to third parties) for developing, testing and validating open-source digital applications for farm decision-making. The call focuses on cereal-based systems and food security. Five projects will each receive up to EUR 50,000, about US$58,000, paid as lump sums over four sprints of 10%, 25%, 40% and 25% across a 12-month programme. The grant covers 100% of project costs, including a 25% flat indirect rate. Applicants choose one topic: sustainable crop production; nutrient and soil health; water efficiency and drought resilience; predictive pest and disease management; or an open topic combining at least two of these. Solutions must start at TRL 4 or higher and reach at least TRL 7. They must use the NOSTRADAMUS data infrastructure, which combines Earth Observation, IoT and edge/cloud computing, and demonstration sites are in Cyprus, Germany, Serbia, Slovenia and Switzerland. The call opened on 29 September 2026 and closes on 2 December 2026 at 17:00 CET. Note that the call describes data-driven and predictive decision support and does not explicitly mention AI.

Partnership Grant Program is sponsored by North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE). This competitive grant program supports cooperative projects between agriculture professionals and small groups of farmers and ranchers to boost on-farm research and education activities. Projects can include curriculum development, on-farm trials, and investigations into new approaches to processing or adding value to farm products.

North Central Region Farmer Rancher Grant Program is sponsored by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) / North Central SARE. Competitive grants program for agricultural producers who want to explore sustainable agriculture solutions through on-farm research, demonstration, and education projects. Grantees evaluate practices that are ecologically sound, economically viable, and beneficial to the farming community.

2027 California Nutrition Incentive Program Expansion – WIC and WIC/Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program Grant is sponsored by California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Office of Farm to Fork. This state grant program encourages the purchase and consumption of fresh, California-grown fruits, vegetables, and nuts by nutrition benefit clients. Specifically, this expansion round focuses on distributing nutrition incentives at Certified Farmers' Markets for participants using the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (WIC FMNP), and Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP). Grants support incentive distribution, program operations, outreach, and technical assistance for electronic Farmers' Market Cards.

Southern SARE Farmer/Rancher Grant is a program from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (USDA) that funds individual farmers, ranchers, and groups of producers in the southern United States to conduct on-farm research and education projects advancing sustainable agriculture practices. Awards of up to $20,000 support producer-led experiments, demonstrations, and outreach that benefit the farming community. Eligible applicants include individual farmers and ranchers or groups of producers across southern states, including Kentucky. Applications are submitted through the SARE Grant Management System following the annual Call for Proposals; the current deadline is December 5, 2026. Proposals are reviewed by regional administrative council committees.

California Underserved and Small Producers Program (CUSP) is sponsored by California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), Office of Grants Administration. Provides direct relief grants to small- and medium-scale California agricultural producers, as well as socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, to help cover unexpected financial burdens from drought, extreme utility bills, extreme weather, and other climate impacts. Grants are distributed via approved Direct Assistance Providers.

California Underserved and Small Producers Program (CUSP) is sponsored by California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Office of Grants Administration. Offers direct relief grants to small and medium-scale California agricultural producers, including socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, to help cover costs from drought, extreme weather, and other climate impacts.

Dairy Farm Improvement & Modernization Grant is sponsored by Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center (NE-DBIC) / Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. Supports systems-level improvements for dairy farms across 11 Northeast states. Funding targets projects that modernize outdated systems, improve operational viability, upgrade milk quality/value, or address environmental resilience and mitigation challenges on working dairy farms.

Dairy Farm Improvement & Modernization Grant is sponsored by Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center (NE-DBIC) (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets). This grant funds projects to help dairy farmers in the Northeast improve their operations for long-term success, including modernizing outdated systems or introducing innovative solutions to improve farm viability, increase animal health and comfort, improve milk quality or valu…

Dairy Farm Improvement & Modernization Grant is sponsored by Various, across Northeast states (e.g., SEMAP). This grant supports projects that modernize outdated systems or introduce innovative solutions to improve farm viability, increase animal health and comfort, improve milk quality or value, improve worker conditions, and strengthen the farm's ability to respond to challenges.

Rural and Tribal Micro-Grants - NM Farmer Innovation Program is sponsored by Farm to Table New Mexico. This program, an expansion of Farm to Table's New Mexico Farmer Innovation Program, provides micro-grants to agricultural producers, political subdivisions of the state or local government, Tribal entities and agencies, and non-profit organizations in New Mexico's rural and trib…

Regional Food System Grants is sponsored by King Conservation District (KCD). This program supports projects that strengthen the local food system in King County and advance climate resilience, food access, and community equity. While there is no competitive round in 2026, a larger pool of funding is expected in 2027.

Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) is sponsored by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), USDA, and Treasury CDFI Fund. The HFFI is a coordinated federal effort to expand access to healthy, fresh food in low-access communities. It provides grants, loans, and technical assistance to support the development of healthy food retail outlets and food enterprises in underserved areas, including those focused on food retail and food retail supply chain projects.

Flax as a regenerative and commercially viable crop in the Chesapeake region is sponsored by Chesapeake Fibershed. Chesapeake Fibershed is focused on efforts to help establish flax as a regenerative and commercially viable crop in their region. They are currently working towards a grant application for 2027 that will provide funding for growers, seeking farmers interested in a 4-year commitment to grow a half acre or more.

This Horizon Europe Cluster 6 topic funds AI systems that deliver advisory support to farmers and foresters, and it sits deliberately under the GOVERNANCE destination rather than under a digital or technology heading - a placement that signals what the Commission is actually buying. The interest is not in advancing agricultural machine learning as such but in the advisory system: how AI-generated recommendations reach farm and forest managers, how they interact with existing extension services and Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems, whether practitioners trust and act on them, and whether the resulting decisions demonstrably improve competitiveness and sustainability outcomes. Consortia that propose a strong model with a thin socio-institutional work package tend to be mismatched to the call. Indicative funding is approximately EUR 5-6 million per project for two projects, sized as a Research and Innovation Action - large enough to require a multi-country consortium and multi-actor design, which for Cluster 6 means genuine involvement of farmers, foresters, advisors and advisory organizations as partners rather than as study subjects. Standard Horizon Europe rules apply: consortia must include at least three independent legal entities from three different EU member states or associated countries, with RIA funding at 100 percent of eligible direct costs plus 25 percent flat-rate indirect costs. The important scheduling caveat is that despite appearing in the 2026-2027 work programme this topic is designated for a 2027 call, so it belongs on a watch list rather than in an immediate submission plan; typical Cluster 6 timing opens calls in the autumn or winter with deadlines in the following February, but applicants must confirm the actual opening and deadline against the topic page on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal, since the draft work programme dates shift before final adoption. Teams intending to compete should use the lead time to assemble the advisory-sector partnerships that this topic rewards.

Grants to New York Nonprofits, Food Pantries, Farmers Markets, and Schools to Address Food Insecurity is sponsored by New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. This opportunity supports mission-aligned projects and measurable outcomes related to addressing food insecurity in New York. Examples include the Farmers' Market Resiliency Grant Program, which helps farmers' markets enhance local food system resiliency by improving market infrastructure, increasing marketing and promotion efforts, and adding delivery capability.

Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Abatement and Control Program (AGNPS) is sponsored by New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. This program provides funding for projects that plan or implement agricultural best management practice systems to reduce, abate, control, or prevent nonpoint source pollution from agricultural sources. While primarily focused on environmental quality, projects that incorporate sustainable farming practices relevant to beginning farmer training (e.g., conservation cover crops, nutrient management) could be eligible. County Soil and Water Conservation Districts apply on behalf of farmers.

HORIZON-CL6-2027-03-GOVERNANCE-04 funds AI-based advisory tools for farmers and foresters, and the Commission's framing is deliberately unforgiving: the tools must be ready for deployment and proven to work better than currently available versions. This is an Innovation Action requiring technology readiness level 8 by project completion, not a research topic, and proposals built around novel method development rather than validated deployment will not fit. The technical scope named in the topic reads as a specification for a modern agricultural advisory system: integration of multiple data sources including public databases, in-situ data and private sources; multimodal input processing across text, images, audio and video; retrieval-augmented generation methodologies; and privacy protection techniques to handle commercially sensitive farm data. Alongside the technology, the topic mandates co-development with end users across diverse European farming systems, publication of curated, interoperable and FAIR-compliant datasets, and substantive social sciences and humanities contributions covering legal, gender and behavioural expertise. Expected outcomes are improved farm and forest management decisions, enhanced user AI literacy and advisory solutions validated in the field by advisors, farmers and foresters across Europe. The multi-actor approach is a mandatory eligibility criterion and proposals that do not demonstrate it are ineligible rather than merely weaker. Two projects are expected from an indicative budget of 11.80 million euros. The topic opens 4 February 2027 with a single-stage deadline of 11 May 2027 at 17:00 Brussels time.

HORIZON-CL6-2027-03-GOVERNANCE-04 is a Horizon Europe Cluster 6 topic funding artificial intelligence that supports informed advice for farmers and foresters in order to improve competitiveness and sustainability. The indicative budget is approximately 5 to 6 million euros per project for 2 projects, a total of roughly 10 to 12 million euros, under a single-stage call that opens 4 February 2027 with a deadline of 11 May 2027. The topic sits in the Cluster 6 governance destination, which is the key to reading it correctly: this is not a call for better agronomic prediction models in the abstract but for AI that improves the advice function itself, the chain from data through advisory services to a decision a farmer or forest manager actually makes. That framing makes advisory bodies, extension services, farm advisory networks and forest owner organisations central consortium members rather than optional stakeholders, and it means evaluators will look for evidence of uptake and behavioural change rather than only model accuracy. The inclusion of forestry alongside agriculture is notable and comparatively rare in agricultural AI funding; forestry advisory contexts involve much longer decision horizons, different data regimes dominated by remote sensing and inventory data, and different ownership structures, so a bid that treats forestry as an afterthought appended to a farming proposal is unlikely to be competitive. This is one of only two Cluster 6 2026-27 topics with AI explicitly in the title, the other being HORIZON-CL6-2026-03-GOVERNANCE-08 on data availability and AI solutions in food, which makes the pair the main entry points for AI work in the EU's food, bioeconomy and natural resources cluster.

This Horizon Europe Cluster 6 topic funds AI-based advisory tools that give farmers and foresters timely, personalised and practical decision support on farm and forest management, with the explicit aim of improving competitiveness and sustainability. It is a single-stage Innovation Action in lump sum format, opening 4 February 2027 and closing 11 May 2027 at 17:00 Brussels time, with a total budget of 11,800,000 euros, an EU contribution of 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 euros per project, and two projects expected. Required deliverables are concrete: practical, field-tested solutions reaching Technology Readiness Level 8 by project completion, curated and interoperable datasets meeting FAIR standards, multimodal data processing spanning text, images, audio and video, and integration with European agriculture data infrastructure. Projects must demonstrate real-world use across diverse European settings rather than in a single region or farming system, which is the requirement that most often determines consortium design. The multi-actor approach is a mandatory element, meaning farmers, foresters and advisory services must be genuine project partners shaping the work rather than recipients of a finished tool. Recommended consortium composition runs to 10 to 14 partners spanning multiple EU regions and including at least one innovative SME with existing AI or agtech products, university partners supplying AI, data science and social science expertise, and agricultural advisory or extension networks. Applicants should verify the final budget, dates and topic conditions on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal, since work programme figures are revised before call opening.

Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) Cooperative Agreement is sponsored by USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). The RFSI program aims to build resilience in the middle of the food supply chain, provide more and better markets to small farms and food businesses, and support the development of value-added products. Funds support expanded capacity for aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling, and distribution of locally and regionally produced food products (excluding meat and poultry).

Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program is sponsored by USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (administered by South Carolina Department of Agriculture). This program aims to build resilience in the middle of the food supply chain, provide more and better markets to small farms and food businesses, and support the development of value-added products. It specifically mentions dairy as an eligible food product.

HORIZON-CL6-2027-02-FARM2FORK-01 funds digital and AI solutions that help farmers adapt to water and nutrient scarcity, integrating precision agriculture, artificial intelligence, sensors and decision-support systems to optimise irrigation and nutrient management, improve productivity, strengthen climate resilience and reduce environmental impacts. It is a Research and Innovation Action with a total budget of 12 million euros, an expected 6 million euros per project and two projects anticipated, opening 20 April 2027 with a deadline of 23 September 2027. The topic sits squarely at the intersection of the AI agriculture and AI climate adaptation agendas, which makes it a useful target for groups that find themselves falling between agricultural and environmental funding streams. Water and nutrient scarcity is the dominant medium-term constraint on European agricultural productivity, particularly across the Mediterranean basin, and the topic's logic is that the gains now available come less from new sensing hardware than from the decision layer: turning heterogeneous soil, weather, crop and water availability data into irrigation and fertilisation decisions that a farmer can act on under genuine scarcity. For precision agriculture groups the attractive feature relative to the Innovation Action topics in the same call is the 100 percent funding rate for all participants and the lower technology readiness expectation, which together make it feasible to propose genuine methodological work rather than only deployment of existing commercial tools.

Agricultural Land Access Technical Assistance Partners Program is sponsored by California Strategic Growth Council (SGC). Funds dedicated technical assistance providers (such as California FarmLink and the Center for Ethical Land Transition) to directly assist California beginning farmers, ranchers, and tribal stewards with complex land acquisition preparation, access agreements, and land tenure security.