The LSSAC 2024 On-Farm Grant

The application window is closed.

11/4/24 - 11/22/24 Applications will be reviewed.

11/22/24 Final decisions on awardees determined.  

Week of 11/25/24 Decisions on applications sent to applicants. 

12/2/24 - 12/20/24 Disbursements to awardees will take place. 

Award Minimum: $2,000

Award Maximum: $50,000

Who is eligible for this grant? What can I apply for in this grant?

  • This is a grant for small farms that are currently in business. This is not a grant for people looking to start farming or for non-profit gardens or farms.

  • Eligible farms are selling produce at markets, wholesale, direct-to-consumer, etc. or have an established perennial crop almost to market.

  • All food producing farms within the state of Louisiana are eligible (vegetable, meat, dairy, fruit).

  • Farms that participate in floriculture, medicinals and nursery crops are welcome to apply if they also produce food. Beekeepers who sell honey at market are eligible.

  • All farming costs are allowable, but will be considered for how reasonable they are (i.e., labor is an allowable expense but a farm operator should not write a grant to pay for their own time farming).

How much can I be granted? Will this grant have another cycle - be available again in another year?

  • This grant has a minimum award of $2,000 and a maximum award of $50,000.

  • This grant will have a 2024, 2025, and 2026 cycle. Farmers who are awarded a grant in one cycle can apply for a future cycle. The max amount a farmer can be awarded across all cycles is $50,000.

  • Farmers are encouraged to ask for the amount of funding for a meaningful project to increase their production, not to default apply for maximum funding. This is a finite amount of money shared among Louisiana's farmers.

How is my application reviewed/scored? Who reviews these applications?

  • To learn more about our rubric for scoring and how we grade applications, please see our Public Rubric for On-Farm Grant 2024, using the “Read how we grade applications here” button on this page.

  • A good application is not ranked by technical writing skills, but by the merit of the proposed project.

  • Feel free to submit any supplemental material that might help you best make your point - drawings, videos, etc. are all acceptable.

  • Applications are reviewed by a stipended and diverse panel of farmers, aggregators, and farmers' market managers.

I have more questions about this grant that aren’t answered here. Who do I go to?