Advancing Markets for
Sustainable and Regenerative Agriculture in Specialty Crops — USDA Pilot Program

IFPA was awarded a USDA Grant for a project titled “Advancing Markets for Sustainable and Regenerative Agriculture in Specialty Crops.” The project aims to empower producers to trial and adopt conservation practices through targeted incentives and tailored technical assistance, measure impacts by equipping growers with tools to document practice adoption, environmental outcomes, and productivity metrics; and advance markets by promoting sustainable and regenerative-grown U.S. specialty crops through strategic marketing and value chain development.

IFPA will offer incentives to growers of specialty crops to adopt at least one of six sustainable and regenerative production practices, with the goal of creating a market for fruits and vegetables grown using these methods.

Our Partners

Who is Eligible to Participate?

IFPA is looking to recruit growers of specialty crops that would be most amenable to sustainable and regenerative practices in either California or Washington State. Examples of eligible specialty crops:

Annuals: Strawberries, tomatoes, carrots, onions, broccoli, kale, specialty greens, sweet potatoes
Perennials (Short-Lived): Blueberries, cane berries
Perennials (Long-Lived): Vineyards, Orchards

Why you should participate

Cash incentive for participation
Assistance with the development of personalized plans for the implementation of sustainable and regenerative practices
Access to a certified pest control advisor and sustainability consultants
Subscription to a software data platform
Partial offset of direct costs involved in implementation of regenerative practices
Data collected on your site is benchmarked against aggregated data

Climate-Smart practices available for
growers to trial

Short-Season Cover Crops

Nutrient Managment

Residue and Tillage Management

Alley Cropping

Water Management

Soil Amendments and Mulches

Expectations of project participants:

Growers: Each grower will be expected to participate in the program until July, 2028, and commit to the implementation of at least one sustainable and regenerative agricultural practice. The growers will make implementation sites available to data and information collection no more than twice a year.

To learn more, please visit our on-demand webinars

Related Press Releases

IFPA and Partners Receive $15M from USDA for Advancing Climate-Smart Pilot Projects
This project will incentivize growers of specialty crops to adopt climate-smart production to establish a consumer-driven market for fruits and vegetables.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under agreement number NR233A750004G078. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition, any reference to specific brands or types of products or services does not constitute or imply an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for those products or services. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

Grower FAQ's

4 year maximum commitment, until 2028 to adopt at least one of the selected practices
We estimate participation and data collection could take up to 50 hours.
Participate in at least 2 field days. Field days will be held within 1-2 hour driving distance from most grower facilities.
Collect and submit ALL required data when it’s due
A grower must be able to verify that the regenerative practice selected is new

Plot size addressed in IFPA FAQ

There is no upper/lower limit on annual revenue, but it must be a functional commercial operation, not a hobby farm.
No limit, at least 1 acre
Current grower interest responses indicate willing to use between 15-20 acres

Examples of data that will be collected

Data will be submitted electronically. The Data Platform is still TBD

Additional information growers will be asked to share includes, but is not limited to:

Pictures of the pilot site
Visual observations noticed
Recommendations
Challenges and successes that can be shared with other growers to avoid duplicative efforts that don’t work

Data will be:

Used to evaluate and validate program impact
Transformed into dashboards once available and given full access to growers
Saved only for the intended use and additional use of data will require permission
Anonymized and aggregated to create AI models that can predict carbon sequestration based on selected practices and crops
Used to inform future decision making and policy development on the impacts of regenerative agriculture.

USDA confirmed that they take data privacy seriously and will not share or release individualized data.

Short Season Cover Crops (NRCS practice code 340)
- Grasses, legumes, forbs planted for seasonal vegetative cover
- Does not replace cash crops
Nutrient Management (NRCS practice code 590)
- Manage rate, source, placement and timing of fertilization and soil amendment application while reducing environmental impacts
Residue and Tillage Management (NRCS practices 328, 329 and 345)
- Limiting soil disturbance, reduce erosion, improve soil health
- Conservation crop rotation
Alley Cropping (NRCS practice code 311)
- Trees or shrubs planted in single or multiple rows with cash crops
Water Management (NRCS practice code 449, 355)
- Irrigation water management to control volume, frequency, application rate
- Irrigation system, micro irrigation (Practice code 441)
- Groundwater testing (Practice code 355), only in combination with other practices
- Grassed waterway (Practice code 412), shaped or graded channel established with suitable vegetation to convey water
- Drainage water management (Practice code 554) managing drainage of water. Must demonstrate that flooding occurs frequently
- Filter strip (Practice code 393), a strip of herbaceous vegetation that removes contaminants from overland flow
- Riparian forest buffer (Practice code 391)
Soil Amendments (biochar, compost, mulches, biologicals)
- Soil carbon amendments (Practice code 336)
- Mulching (Practice code 484)

Paperwork required includes:

FSA Farm field tract maps with GPS coordinates to State and County
Approximate acreage for the pilot
Form CPA-52 needs to be filled out prior to contract signing
Complete an AD-2047 (Customer Data Worksheet to facilitate the collection of customer data for Business Partner Record)
Certify HELC and WC compliance via Form AD-1026, Highly Erodible Land Conservation (HELC) and Wetland Conservation (WC) Certification
Certify that they are not a foreign person or entity.

Funding will be customized based on the grower’s chosen practice and acreage under climate smart practices. There are two types of funding:

Partial off-set of direct costs
- Up to $10,000/year to offset 90% of direct cost of materials, soil testing, equipment, labor, and technical support
Cash incentives
- An additional $5,000 per year will be awarded to each participating grower upon successful participation and engagement
- An additional $500 per acre enrolled in the program will be awarded on a yearly basis to each grower (reimbursement capped at 26 enrolled acres)

This is to avoid duplicative efforts especially with shared association members.
Grower data (individual or grouped) will not be shared with other projects or associations

There will be rolling deadlines, and it is important that growers express interest using this QR Code. We will tailor communications to those who have expressed interest using this link

This will depend on the contract process between IFPA and the Growers
See Onboarding Process For Growers document

If there are no other growers of this commodity in the area, the grower will receive back only own data. For the modeling purposes, data will be uploaded in the COMET tool (where thousands of growers are currently uploading similar data sets via 140 funded projects), and the data – once transformed by COMET – does not have identifiable location tags.

Questions?

Sophie Marques

Science and Technology Coordinator

+1(302)607-2142 Email Sophie Marques

Advancing Markets forSustainable and Regenerative Agriculture in Specialty Crops — USDA Pilot Program

Our Partners

Who is Eligible to Participate?

Why you should participate

Climate-Smart practices available for growers to trial

Expectations of project participants:

To learn more, please visit our on-demand webinars

Related Press Releases

Grower FAQ's

What level of commitment is required by the growers?

Do participating growers need to have a minimum annual revenue or acreage under management?

How will the data be submitted?

What additional data will growers be asked to share?

How will my data be used?

What sustainable/regenerative practices are eligible?

What paperwork will need to be completed?

What are the financial incentives for growers?

Can or will IFPA share project progress and resources, specifically on regen ag definitions, soil health metrics, and other metrics with other associations?

When will we know if we are chosen to participate in the cohort of 100 growers?

When will we meet with the Measure to Improve ag advisor Kyle Cosgrove?

If you are a large producer of a particular commodity, and you are the only grower of that commodity in the data set, it will be obvious who that grower is. How can this anonymization work for big growers, as well as small ones?

Questions?

Advancing Markets for
Sustainable and Regenerative Agriculture in Specialty Crops — USDA Pilot Program

Climate-Smart practices available for
growers to trial