In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture terminated a $59 million University of Idaho grant that provided for the Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership grant program. This was the largest federal grant in UI history and was intended to pay Idaho producers to develop more sustainable agricultural practices. The grant was cut due to new USDA criteria that called for at least 65% of grant funds to be directly allocated to producers.
The USDA has now allowed UI to resubmit a revised IAMP grant application with a closer adherence to the new Advancing Markets for Producers initiative.
Under UI’s new application, producers would be offered $39.2 million in direct incentives, 66.2% of the full budget. Much like the original proposal, this percentage includes reimbursements for producers integrating approved conservation practices. A UI news release also announced an additional $3.5 million to go directly to producers to fund marketing efforts, saying, “The revised proposal will provide more resources to growers on how to best market sustainably grown products to increase revenues.”
As of March, before the termination of the IAMP grant program, UI reported receiving 201 applications from growers across 34 counties to participate. If the resubmission is accepted, UI said that producers will be the first notified.
The producers in question would be Idaho farmers and ranchers who apply to participate in the program. There will be a “focus on seven of Idaho’s major commodities: barley, beef, chickpeas, hops, potatoes, sugarbeets and wheat,” according to Amy Calabretta, Interim Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Participants are required to implement sustainable methods from a list of approved agricultural practices.
The revisions also state that research would continue at five UI research and Extension centers. Here, the effectiveness of the approved conservation practices will be evaluated. Other requirements of the original bill have been removed. For instance, on-farm soil sampling and in-field baseline comparisons are no longer mandatory, meaning there won’t be specific data from each participating producer.
“We will still be doing research at five UI research and Extension centers and on the Coeur d’Alene Tribal farm, focusing on evaluating the effectiveness of the approved sustainable practices,” said Calabretta.
If the grant is reinstated, on-campus employment would see some new openings. This would include positions for five graduate students, one post-doctorate, nine program support staff members and a maximum of 10 part-timers. The original termination affected 12 graduate students who were then reassigned to other projects.
“Research faculty will continue to submit proposals to other funding agencies to support similar research activities across the state,” Calabretta said. “However, the opportunity to better understand the impacts of wide-scale implementation of conservation practices that support soil health and long-term sustainability of agricultural systems as well as the strengthening of existing or new commodity markets will be missed. It will not be possible to put together a comprehensive project that addresses all these issues with a series of smaller funded research grants.”
A decision is expected within one to five weeks.
Julia Kolman can be reached at [email protected].