The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is making up to $300,000,000 available for the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program through this funding opportunity. USDA is committed to funding projects that support a diverse set of farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and operators (producers) on the edge of viability, moving them from surviving to thriving as they address core barriers to attain land, capital, and market access.

USDA will achieve this goal by funding cooperative agreements or grants to organizations, to be known as Awardees, 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.  

USDA is seeking proposals to fund projects across four tiers of effort as described below:

                i.           Large, national land access projects

               ii.           Mid-sized, national projects to test innovations in design

               iii.           Regional projects to test innovations in design

               iv.           Local, state, territory, county, and community projects to test innovations in design

The primary focus of this funding opportunity is to strengthen land access with additional opportunities to focus on capital access and market access for use in agriculture. The ability to access capital and markets allows landowners and operators to retain access to their lands or seek new lands/expansion of existing operations. These issues are inextricably intertwined. Projects must focus on strengthening land access with at least one of the following related areas of concern: 

                i.            Capital access concerns that affect the ability to access land;

               ii.            Market access concerns that affect the ability to access land; or

               iii.            A combination of one or more of land, capital, and market access concerns. 

Duplicate or multiple submissions are not allowed. Only one submission is allowed per eligible entity. Interested applicants from within Duke should contact fundopps@duke.edu as early as possible.

Deadline: Oct. 28, 2022