New funding opens doors (and fields) for transformation
SFA has more good news this year on the funding front! In June of 2025 we applied for a second National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Conservation Partners Program grant to increase our ability to offer educational events and more regenerative technical assistance through our Farmer-to-Farmer Consulting Program. We got word earlier this spring that we were awarded the grant and we just recently signed the paperwork and have started working on this project.
Our original “Expanding Regenerative Grazing in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed” grant focuses primarily on fostering the adoption of regenerative grazing practices in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed. The addition of the NFWF Great Plains Grant allows SFA to work with more diversified farming and ranching operations in the Great Plains work area (think eastern Dakotas, western Minnesota, and Northern Iowa). But what does this mean for SFA, our staff, and our community members?
While good grazing management certainly has positive environmental and climatological effects downstream, we believe that helping more farmers in the cropping sector adopt soil health practices will have far more immediate transformative impacts on our Upper Midwest ecosystem and farm economy. Soil erosion through wind and water, overapplication of fertility, lack of soil cover, tillage…our team is poised to help farmers shift from these common scenarios by applying regenerative practices, and effectively move the Great Plains agricultural ecosystem to a regenerative farming culture.
The map of the intersecting grant project areas illustrates the borderless nature of our work. Now more than ever, agencies are looking at issues from a watershed and ecological zone perspective that often transcends political boundaries. When we can work at that level, we start to realize how our actions impact our neighbors and communities downstream and downwind of our farms, and that we are stewards of communal resources that matter to others in neighboring states and regions.
The Great Plains grant also creates opportunities to collaborate with aligned organizations in other states that we haven’t worked with before. We know after more than thirty years of collaborating with others: new organizational relationships foster innovation in how we approach and implement our work, and cultivate new opportunities beyond this project. This is how SFA grows our footprint of influence, one grant and one farmer at a time.
One of the most exciting aspects of this grant is the opportunity to add additional talented individuals to our team. This work is ultimately all about people – both the farmers and ranchers who work the land and our team that advises and assists them. As many farmer-facing agencies and organizations lose capacity because of funding limitations, we see the future of farmer technical assistance becoming more privatized. We will be able to attract more talented individuals onto our team to provide that farmer-to-farmer knowledge and education – growing our roster of consulting talent. Our goal is to have a consultant with the expertise to support regenerative transitions in every farmer’s corner, and to be on the cutting edge of technical assistance in the upper Midwest.
We’re excited to get rolling on this grant, but also to use this project as a means to keep pressing ahead to help more regenerative farms, rural communities, and keep our landscapes thriving in the upper Midwest.
"This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under
agreement number 89246."
