Animal Waste Technology Fund (AWTF) — Maryland

Maryland's Animal Waste Technology Fund (AWTF), administered by the Maryland Department of Agriculture and funded by the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund, provides grants to individuals, vendors, and businesses to demonstrate proven, innovative technologies for managing animal waste from Maryland livestock (e.g., dairy wastewater, poultry processing waste, livestock carcasses). Eligible technologies may reduce nutrient levels, change the waste's form or function for other uses, or generate energy and marketable products; alternative product development and manure-to-energy projects are supported. Research-and-development-stage projects are ineligible. Established 2013. Approximately $750,000 was available in FY2026.

Individuals, vendors, and businesses. Projects should demonstrate potential to enhance public health and environmental well-being, offer alternative waste-management solutions for agriculture, and have positive economic-development impact in Maryland. Additional consideration for projects addressing climate and community benefits. R&D-stage projects are not eligible.

No per-recipient award ceiling, cost-share percentage, or match requirement is published on the program page. What MDA publishes is the pool: "Maryland's Animal Waste Technology Fund has approximately $750,000 available to invest in innovative technologies during the Fiscal Year 2026, which ends June 30, 2026." Funding support comes from the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund.

Awards are sized project by project through a two-stage competition — a Letter of Intent, then an invited full proposal, "reviewed and ranked by the department in consultation with the Animal Waste Technology Evaluation Committee." Individual grants have been large relative to the annual pool: MDA announced "a $505,744 Animal Waste Technology Grant to South Mountain Creamery in Frederick County" in 2024, and the program page links a 2023 release headlined "Department Awards $1.5 Million Animal Waste Technology Grant to Cecil County Dairy Farm." Treat those as precedents, not caps.

The fund is seed money for demonstrating proven technology on farms, so "projects in the research and development stage are ineligible for this grant." No match is required by the published terms, though recipients have stacked other funding on top (South Mountain Creamery added roughly $200,000 from the Conservation Innovation Fund and $350,000 from Nutrient Control Systems). Per-recipient limits, if any, would be set in the Grant Project Request issued each cycle — that document is not posted now that the FY2026 window has closed.

Annual fiscal-year cycle. FY2026 window is now closed: Letter of Intent was due October 17, 2025; high-ranking applicants were invited to submit a full grant proposal due December 23, 2025, reviewed by MDA with the Animal Waste Technology Evaluation Committee. Watch for the next (FY2027) round; submit a Letter of Intent per the Grant Project Request when reopened.