National Young Farmers Coalition Young Farmer Grant

In 2020 The National Young Farmers Coalition (Young Farmers) launched a new grant program to help young and beginning farmers and ranchers start up and grow their businesses. The program provided 50 farmers and ranchers with $5,000 grants in the spring of 2020. Grant recipients also received a one-year membership to the National Young Farmers Coalition.

This year, sixty-seven awards will go to businesses already in operation, and eight to farm and ranch operations starting up in 2023. The grant program is available to support farmers and ranchers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, in addition to the 50 states and Washington D.C.

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.

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.

These grants are available to farmers of all races and gender identities. To ensure that the grants are contributing to ending inequity in access to agricultural careers, NYFC commits to providing a minimum of 50% of our 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.

• This program seeks to support “livelihood farmers and rancher” or those seeking long term careers that financially support them through agriculture. At this time NYFC are not able to offer funding to farmers who are not currently, or working toward making an income farming through long term careers in agriculture.

  • Applicant must be the operation owner or plan to start their own operation in 2021.

  • For non-profit farms without “owners” applicant must be the lead farmer/farm manager.

  • Farmer part-owners of cooperative or collective farms are qualified to apply. Please choose just one owner to represent the operation in the application.

• Young farmers and ranchers between 18-40 years of age as of April 1, 2021.

• Applicant must use farm practices that protect natural resources for future generations.

• Applicant must be farming or ranching in one of the 50 U.S. states, in Puerto Rico, or in the Virgin Islands.

• There are no preferences for what applicants produce on their operations or for current scale of farm.

• NYFC strongly encourages farmers of color, indigenous farmers, and farmers who are facing significant structural barriers to accessing other funding opportunities and success in agriculture to apply.

• Staff and Board members of the National Young Farmers Coalition are not eligible to apply.

• Recipients of the 2020 Young Farmer Grants are not eligible to apply.

• Grant recipients will be required to submit two reports

  • A progress report between in the summer of 2021 detailing progress toward goals and any potential changes to original plan

  • A final brief written report in October 2021 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 2021.

  • 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 youngfarmers.org and 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.

• Applicants should note that this grant is taxable income.

• This program seeks to support “livelihood farmers and ranchers” or those seeking long term careers that financially support them through agriculture. At this time we are not able to offer funding to farmers who are not currently, or are not working, toward making an income farming through long-term careers in agriculture.1

  • Applicant must be the operation owner or plan to start their own operation in 2024.

  • For non-profit farms without “owners” applicant must be the lead farmer/farm manager.

  • Farmer part-owners of cooperative or collective farms are qualified to apply. Please choose just one owner to represent the operation in the application.

• Young farmers and ranchers who are at least 18 and not over 40 years of age as of May 1, 2024.

• Applicant must use farm practices that protect natural resources for future generations.

• Applicant must be farming or ranching in one of the 50 U.S. states, D.C., in Puerto Rico, Guam, or in the Virgin Islands.

• There are no preferences for what applicants produce on their operations or for current scale of farm.

• We strongly encourage farmers of color, Indigenous farmers, and farmers who are facing significant structural barriers to accessing other funding opportunities and success in agriculture to apply.

• Staff and Board members of the National Young Farmers Coalition are not eligible to apply.

• Recipients of the 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 Young Farmer Grants are not eligible to apply.

_What does it mean to be a “livelihood farmer/rancher”? _

This program is designed to support farmers and ranchers who are currently, or are working toward, financially supporting themselves through their agricultural careers. Farmers who own and operate farm operations who also have off farm jobs to support themselves are still eligible to apply as long as they receive some income from their farms and are seeking to either move to full-time farming or for whom farming is their primary career and off-farm work is supplementary.

At this time we are not able to offer funding through this grant program to farmers/ranchers/gardeners who volunteer their time in the agriculture work they do, or to private self-sufficiency growers that are not otherwise operating as farm operations or serving their local food economies.

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