The Boulder County Soil Health Initiative provides grants to local agricultural producers who operate on leased Boulder County Parks & Open Space (BCPOS) land, private land, or both.
Donor Name: Boulder County
State: Colorado
County: Boulder County (CO)
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 02/12/2024
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The Healthy Soils Initiative is a collaborative, multi-departmental grant program offered by Boulder County’s Parks and Open Space Agricultural Division and the Office of Sustainability, Climate Action, and Resilience. Funding available for 2024 totals $1,000,000. The target audience is agricultural producers who farm or ranch on privately owned land or leased BCPOS agricultural property.
The Boulder County Commissioners and county staff believe the power of partnership and consistency across departments will elevate the impact and reach of this new program. This focused and scaled approach to soil health incentivization is a key step towards systems-level change within Boulder County’s agricultural lands. The outcomes of this grant program will be a more climate-resilient, income-equitable, productive, and localized food system. A smaller version of the existing Sustainable Food and Agriculture Fund will still be available in 2024 focused on education, market infrastructure, processing, and frontline farm workers.
$1 million in funding is available for the 2024 grant cycle, and will be awarded based on how well applicants incorporate USDA’s principles to improve soil health, including:
- Minimizing soil disturbance
- Maximizing soil surface cover
- Increasing plant diversity and/or livestock integration
- Maximizing presence of living roots.
This funding opportunity will be available for use in 5 categories of soil health based on the USDA’s NRCS principles to improve soil health:
- Increasing soil surface cover
- Increasing plant diversity
- Increasing livestock integration
- Minimizing soil disturbance
- Keeping a live root in the ground.
Funding Information
- Healthy Soils Initiative Grant Program
- There will be a total of $500,000 available:
- Eligible projects must be between $40,000 and $100,000 in total budget.
- There will be a total of $500,000 available:
- Agriculture Grant Program
- Boulder County Parks & Open Space is looking to increase the adoption of soil health principles by its agricultural tenants through a grant program. Tenants of all types are encouraged to apply.
- There is a total of $450,000 available and applications will be divided into two categories:
- $5,000 – $15,000
- $15,001 – $25,000.
Award Criteria
Funding will be awarded based on the following criteria.
- Enrollment in the Colorado STAR program
- Clearly stated goals and objectives
- Feasibility of execution
- Scalability of practice
- Impacts on historically underserved producers.
- Agricultural innovation
- Located in Boulder County
Optional/Bonus Points:
- Enrollment in Farm Service Agency, and certification of highly erodible land conservation and wetland conservation compliance
- Buyer engagement
- Willingness to partner with Zero Foodprint for additional funds.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants must have been operating a farm or ranch in Boulder County for at least two years.
- Applicants may only submit one application.
Eligible practices include but are not limited to:
- No- or reduced-tillage
- Utilizing cover crops
- Rotational grazing and/or crop rotation.
Ineligible Uses of Funds
Funds may not be used for the following purposes:
- Repayment of existing debt, or pre-existing tax liens or obligations
- Payment of organizational overhead exceeding 15% of proposed project budget
- Legal fees
- Loan or bank fees
- Subsidization of existing contracts
- Funds for start-up business
- Labor for existing programs
- Travel.
For more information, visit Boulder County.
