Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Small Grants Program

Funder: Regents Of The University Of California, Office Of The President

The Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Small Grants Program, managed by the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, aims to enhance the resilience of California’s food systems. It supports projects that promote environmentally regenerative practices, improve access to healthy foods, and strengthen community connections. Priority is given to initiatives benefiting disadvantaged communities and socially disadvantaged groups, ensuring inclusivity in agricultural development while addressing ecological and economic challenges.

The UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UC SAREP) is a statewide program of University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR). UC SAREP envisions a food and farming system that:
supports resilience through diversified production, marketing, and distribution systems,values all food system workers and supports their physical, economic, and social wellbeing,contributes to the health and vitality of urban, rural, and Tribal communities,is environmentally regenerative, using resources for production and distribution in a way that protects the environment in trust for future generations, including under changing climate conditions, and   is culturally responsive and reflects the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of California.
Program Priority Areas
We are interested in projects that build the capacity of farming and food systems businesses and organizations to become reflective, adaptive learning organizations that can respond effectively to ecological, economic, and social change and disruption.
UC SAREP will fund projects that fall within two priority areas:

• Priority Area 1: Support California’s farmers, ranchers, and Tribal and non-Tribal land stewards of all scales in piloting, evaluating, and transitioning to:

environmentally regenerative approaches to producing crops and livestock (including but not limited to soil health, organic and agroecological practices, integrated pest management, crop diversification);pathways for realizing economic return from ecologically-sound crop management practices and fair labor practices;marketing and distribution strategies that support diversified, decentralized, and locally-based supply chains;strategies that promote producer-to-producer networking and/or producer-to-supply chain networking.
Priority Area 2: Support California’s rural, urban, and Tribal communities in identifying, implementing, and evaluating strategies to:
expand access to healthy, sustainably produced, culturally appropriate foods;ensure worker wellbeing across the food chain;minimize the community and environmental costs of food production and distribution; strengthen connections between consumers and producers;establish and strengthen producer-to-producer connections and producer-to-supply chain connections.
Priority will be given to projects that directly benefit and involve ANY of the following priority groups:
SB535 Disadvantaged Communities A map of disadvantaged communities in California for the purposes of SB535 Tribal communities, and/orsocially disadvantaged farmers, ranchers, and land stewards A “socially disadvantaged group” means a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender discrimination.These groups include the following: African Americans, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, Female farmers and ranchers (2020 Report to the California Legislature on the Farmer Equity Act).