Proximity Climate-Smart Partnership

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. _

Proximity Malt, a regional malting company with malthouses in the Mountain West and Mid-Atlantic, runs this USDA-funded partnership to build a market for regeneratively grown barley under its ReGenMalt brand. The project pays a premium for regeneratively grown barley to offset the risk of switching practices. It also offers educational field days and sets standards so buyers can trust the regenerative claim. Eocene Environmental Group, a third-party verifier, tracks production practices field by field on enrolled farms.

Supported NRCS practices are conservation crop rotation (328), no-till residue and tillage management (329), cover crops (340), sprinkler systems (442) and irrigation water management (449). The USDA agreement runs through September 20, 2028.

Individual barley growers enroll directly with Proximity Malt — there is no public competitive application round, and Proximity's enrollment form is the only published gate.

Where you must farm. The program page names two eligible regions and no others:

• Mid Atlantic: "Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia"

• Mountain West: "Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming"

Two hard requirements, both stated on the enrollment form as things you must acknowledge:

• "I understand I will need to establish Farm Records with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) (have farm, tract, and field numbers in place)"

• "I understand I will receive a W-9 for payments received from this grant"

Preferred but not required. The form's remaining checkboxes are qualifications, not tests: "I currently have small grains in my rotation," "I have grown malting barley," and "I currently practice no-till or minimum till, or am interested in making this transition." You can indicate you are new to malting barley.

What is NOT published: no acreage minimum, no entity-type restriction (so sole proprietors, LLCs and other farm entities are all presumably fine), no organic or other certification requirement, no income test, and no application deadline. Note also that no priority or set-aside for small and underserved farmers appears anywhere on the live page — treat any such claim as unverified.

One caution before you plan around this: the parent federal program is gone. "On April 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC)." Proximity's page still presents an open enrollment form and does not state whether the program is open, closed, or ended, so confirm with Proximity directly and ask your local FSA office about the successor Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative.

No premium percentage, per-acre payment, transition-incentive amount, or contract length is published. Proximity's program page commits only to "Providing a payment premium for regeneratively grown barley to offset the risks and attract new growers," and its regenerative-grains page publishes no figures either. Expect the actual numbers to be set in an individual barley contract, so treat the premium as negotiable rather than posted.

Context, not a farmer payment: USDA's approved federal funding for this project was $4,999,233 (ceiling $4,999,524) — the whole five-year partnership budget across all participants, verification services, and administration, not an award to any one farm.

Before you plan around any of it, note the parent program is gone: "On April 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC)." Confirm directly with Proximity that enrollment and the premium are still live, and ask your local FSA office about the successor Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative.

Fill out the "Interested in Enrolling as a ReGenMalt Producer" form on the program page. Before you can take part, you need farm records with the Farm Service Agency (farm, tract and field numbers). Payments from the grant are reported to you on a W-9.