In partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and The J.M. Smucker Co., the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) will award competitive grants to accelerate the voluntary adoption of regenerative agriculture principles and conservation practices on private working lands in priority geographic areas.
Donor Name: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)
States: Selected States
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 07/13/2022
Grant Size: $100,000 to $600,000
Grant Duration: 3 years
Details:
The Conservation Partners Program will fund projects that provide agricultural producers with technical assistance to adopt regenerative agriculture systems and conservation practices on their working lands. Grant recipients will hire or otherwise support field conservation professionals who will help producers develop and implement economically sound approaches that achieve positive environmental outcomes.
Categories
Competitive projects will promote approaches that best align with the key objectives identified for each of the five program priority categories. Key strategies within these categories include:
- Grazing management: Promote plant growth above and below ground, improve wildlife habitat, and maximize soil carbon by establishing native grasses, optimizing stocking rates, livestock rotations, utilization rates, and plant rest and recovery.
- Crop management: Improve water quality and maximize soil carbon by increasing adoption of cover crops, reduced tillage, diversified crop rotations, perennial cropping systems, nutrient management plans, precision agriculture, and other soil health practices.
- Irrigation improvement: Improve hydrology, in-stream flows, aquifer recharge, and flood/drought resilience by increasing efficiency of on-farm irrigation practices and reducing agricultural runoff.
- Habitat enhancement: Enhance habitat values of working grasslands, field buffers, forests, wetlands, riparian zones, floodplains and other adjacent areas through native plantings, removal of invasive species, beneficial mowing, prescribed burning, fencing and other conservation practices.
Funding Information
- Approximately $3.9 million in grant funding is available under this funding opportunity. Typical grant awards will range from $100,000 to $600,000, with an estimated average grant size of approximately $250,000.
- Grant period of performance will typically be three years following finalization of the grant agreement.
Geographic Focus
This funding opportunity will provide grant funding for projects that align geographically with the following program priority categories:
- Prairie Pothole Region
- Upper Mississippi River Basin
- Southern Great Plains
- Pacific Salmon and Western Water
- Working Lands for Wildlife
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants include non-profit 501(c) organizations, state government agencies, local governments, municipal governments, tribal governments and organizations, and educational institutions. To be competitive, applicant organizations must demonstrate capacity and experience commensurate with the scale of the project being proposed and the funding being requested.
- Individuals, federal government agencies, and for-profit entities and are not eligible to apply for grant funding.
For more information, visit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF).
