A Vibrant Future

Notice: _On April 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC). The USDA plans to reform the program into the Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative. Contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) for more information on how to apply to the AMP initiative. _

Pilot Projects for Climate-Smart Fruit and Vegetable Production, Marketing, and Valuation of Ecosystem Services

This project will incentivize growers of specialty crops to adopt climate-smart production using practices like tillage management, alley cropping, water management and soil amendments, in order to establish consumer-driven climate-smart markets for fruits and vegetables grown using climate-smart practices. The project aims to develop tools for marketing climate-smart commodities that will be suitable for specialty crop growers, and could be adoptable by the larger ag industry.

This would include a consumer-focused “climate-smart seal” to be affixed to fruits and vegetables and/or traceable and tradeable “climate-smart benefits bundles (CSBB)” that growers can use in financial transactions.

IFPA is recruiting growers of specialty crops most amenable to sustainable and regenerative practices in either California or Washington State.

Examples of eligible specialty crops:

• Annuals: Strawberries, tomatoes, carrots, onions, broccoli, kale, specialty greens, sweet potatoes

• Perennials (Short-Lived): Blueberries, cane berries

• Perennials (Long-Lived): Vineyards, Orchards

Financial incentives for participation (cash incentives to offset the costs of implementing regenerative practices):

• $28,000 maximum yearly payment — total combined maximum earning potential per year for participating growers.

• $10,000 direct cost reimbursement — maximum per year for materials, labor, testing, equipment, and rentals.

• $5,000 participation flat rate — upon completion of onboarding, baseline data, and reporting requirements.

• Plus a $500 bonus per acre up to 26 acres (not to exceed $13,000 per operation).

Growers receive 90% reimbursement while the remaining 10% is treated as a cost share.

Sign up online with IFPA first, then do the USDA paperwork at your local FSA/NRCS office. Two separate steps, and the second one is the slow one.

Step 1 — the grower sign-up form. The program page carries three sign-up links, one per audience. Growers want the first, labelled "Specialty Crop Growers — California and Washington State producers," which opens a Formsite form titled "2026 AMP Grant Program - Growers" at https://fs12.formsite.com/pmameetingforms/dze36lhsi0/index. (The other two are for "Solution Providers & Advisors" and "Buyers & Retailers" — don't use those.) It is short: name, company, email, phone, whether you have growing operations in California or Washington, the city/state/county of each operation, crop types, "How many acres are you willing to dedicate to the AMP grant program?", "Are you are currently involved in any USDA-NRCS grant programs?", "Are you willing to pilot a sustainable or regenerative practice until July 2028?", and at least one practice from: conservation crop rotation, mulching, no-till, nutrient management, short season cover crops, soil amendments (including biochar and biologicals), reduced till, water management. The form ends "You will receive a confirmation email immediately after we receive your form."

The form linked on this record. The linked "Climate-Smart Pilot Project Form" (https://my.freshproduce.com/cpbase\_\_form?ID=a0c5b00000Cq7as) is the older IFPA-hosted version of that same grower interest form — it still loads and still opens "Thank you for your interest in the AMP Grant Program" — but the current program page routes growers to the Formsite link above. Use the Formsite one.

Step 2 — USDA farm records, at your service center. Enrolment requires you to "Establish farm records with USDA Farm Service Agency and complete all required forms." The published list, with what each is:

• Farm Records and Maps — your operation and its fields on file with FSA (you need a farm number).

• CCC-901 / CCC-902 — the member-information and farm-operating-plan forms FSA uses to determine payment eligibility.

• AD-1026 — the highly-erodible-land and wetland-conservation certification. Nothing moves without it.

• AD-2047 — the customer data worksheet that creates or updates your FSA customer record.

• 156-EZ and Subsidiary Print — the farm record abstract and the subsidiary eligibility printout FSA pulls for you.

• CPA-52 — the NRCS environmental evaluation. Start this first: the program FAQ warns that "An Environmental Evaluation (CPA-52) will be required for this new program for most practices which may delay the enrollment process."

IFPA does not file these for you; they are done through your local FSA/NRCS service center.

Also part of enrolling: commit to a trial period implementing conservation practices; "Submit baseline data, allow access to sites for data collection, and be willing to document and enter data points for reporting purposes"; document implementation progress; and "Demonstrate that the entity doesn't receive federal funding, through NRCS conservation programs, for the same practice on the same ground."

Timing — no deadline is published. IFPA publishes no application opening or closing date. It describes a "multi-year program" in which "Participation is structured annually," and it is recruiting continuously ("We are looking to recruit specialty crop growers interested in conducting pilot trials"), with the sign-up form asking about piloting through July 2028. Treat intake as open recruitment, not a dated round, and confirm the current year's cycle when you make contact.

Who to ask. Measure to Improve is "the centralized grower support team and primary point of contact throughout the program" — "For any AMP related inquiries, please contact AMP@MeasuretoImprovellc.com." At IFPA, Sophie Marques, Science and Technology Coordinator, +1 (302) 607-2142. One caution the page adds: "This program is different from the recently announced USDA NRCS Regenerative Pilot Program. Growers can go directly to USDA offices to learn more about that program."

• Webinar for growers