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Grants and Funding

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Home / Departments / Business and Marketing Support / Farm to School Toolkit / For Farmers: Selling to Schools / Grants and Funding

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Grants and Funding

Most successful farm to school projects are made possible with grants and community-based funding, at least in the start-up stages. The grants on this page are mostly from national sources and may be highly competitive.

We recommend that you start by seeking local sources of funding and in-kind support for your farm to school projects. Several stellar Washington projects work by creatively using school budgets and partnering with community members and businesses for donations and grant support.

Please note that this list is gathered as a service to help you learn what’s available. It is not exhaustive, and inclusion on this page should in no way be considered an endorsement by the State of Washington or the Department of Agriculture. If you know of other grant programs we should consider, please send them to us at farmtoschool@agr.wa.gov

Grants

WSDA's main website has a listing of agriculture grants, many of which are helpful for farms interested in selling to schools.  More info here.  

WSDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program

These are useful for projects that will benefit a large number of specialty crop growers.  Specialty crops include fruits, vegetables, nuts, and horticulture plants.  More info here.

USDA Grant Programs

USDA has a variety of grant and loan programs available to producers that are relevant for farm to school. Just a few of these programs include:

To find out which grants apply to you depending on your place in the local and regional food system, download the USDA Programs in the Local Food Supply Chain [PDF].

WSDA Regional Markets

WSDA's Small Farm Direct Marketing program has many excellent resources to grant programs, loans, and other financing options available to farmers:
Running a Successful Farm Business: Financing your farm

Tools

Foundation Center

The Foundation Center is the most authoritative source of information on private philanthropy in the United States helping grantseekers, grantmakers, researchers, policymakers, the media, and the general public better understand the field of philanthropy. The web site is designed to guide you quickly to the information you are looking for—instruction on funding research, help with proposal writing, tools for locating prospective funders, news and research on the field, or a library or training class near you.


Grants.Gov

Grants.gov is a central storehouse for information on over 1,000 grant programs and provides access to approximately $500 billion in annual awards. Grants are available for small businesses, educational and government organizations.