Future of $59 million U of I grant is uncertain

By Sean Ellis

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

The future status of a $59 million grant University of Idaho received to help Idaho farmers implement “climate-smart” practices is uncertain.

The university had received applications from 201 Idaho agricultural producers who, through the grant, were hoping to work with UI researchers to address some resource-related issues.

They hope the grant is reinstated, even if it’s in a somewhat different form.

But for now, it’s canceled.

“It is terminated,” said Sanford Eigenbrode, who was co-director of the project funded by the grant.

The grant, the largest in U of I history, would have funded the university’s Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership (IAMP) project.

Work on that project has ceased.

The IAMP project, according to a university news release, was “intended to provide payment directly to Idaho producers for developing sustainable agricultural practices.”

USDA on April 14 announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which provided U of I’s $59 million grant. The PCSC initiative was overhauled into what USDA now calls the Markets for Producers initiative.

The ag department plans to reformulate the initiative to cut what it says was too much red tape and overhead. It also wants to award more grant money directly to ag producers.

According to USDA, the majority of the projects funded under the PCSC “had sky-high administration fees which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers.”

“Select projects may continue if it is demonstrated that a significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers,” an April 14 USDA news release stated. “With this action, USDA is cutting bureaucratic red tape, streamlining reporting, lowering the paperwork burden on producers and putting farmers first.”  

The ag department encouraged partners, such as U of I, who had received grants under the prior initiative to ensure their projects are farmer-focused and re-apply.

USDA has identified changes under the new initiative that grant partners will have to meet. They include:

• A minimum of 65 percent of federal funds must go to producers.
• Grant recipients must have enrolled at least one producer as of Dec. 31, 2024.
• Grant recipients must have made a payment to at least one producer as of Dec. 31, 2024.

Grant recipients have until June 20 to reapply and will have to meet the new requirements.

According to the USDA news release, “Select projects may continue if it is demonstrated that a significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers. We continue to support farmers and encourage partners to ensure their projects are farmer focused or re-apply to continue work that is aligned with the priorities of this administration.”

As of April 30, U of I officials were waiting for a call from USDA that would get the re-application process rolling.

Eigenbrode is confident the university can re-formulate the IAMP project to meet USDA’s new criteria.

He said he saw no deal-breakers in the new criteria.

“I am confident” we can get the project going again, he said. “We are looking forward to it. It’s doable.”

Eigenbrode said regardless of changes in policy and vision between administrations over the years, the university has always had its eyes on the same prize: “We’re here to support producers…”

Farmers who were on the verge of working with U of I researchers to implement practices in alignment with the IAMP project are left holding the bag for now.

Some of them had already spent a decent amount of money preparing to implement these practices and are in a sort of holding pattern, waiting to see if the grant and IAMP project continues.

According to its news release, USDA said it “will honor all eligible expenses incurred prior to April 13, 2025.” However, some Idaho farmers who already spent money in anticipation of the IAMP project are not sure they will recoup most of that money.

Craigmont farmer Tom Mosman said his operation bought a $650,000 drill to accommodate practices the project wanted done.

“The way it stands now, I have no way of recouping that money,” he said.

USDA’s new criteria for these types of projects that seeks to provide more of the grant money directly to farmers is a good thing, Mosman said.

But he’s more concerned about the grant itself, and the project it funds, coming back, than he is about the extra money producers might see under the new criteria.

That’s because he was looking forward to working with U of I researchers to address some of the resource concerns in his region.

“We need to do this and we need the university’s help on this,” Mosman said.

Clint Zenner’s 5,000-acre farm southeast of Genesee was the pilot for the IAMP project and Zenner implemented all of the practices project leaders wanted him to do last fall.

He was the first grower contracted with the IAMP project, and he bought a lot of compost in anticipation of it.

“I was supposedly going to get paid and then the grant got shut down,” he said.

Zenner said there are a lot of resource concerns in his area and, like Mosman, he was looking forward to working with university researchers to try to address them through the IAMP project.

He’s confident U of I will get the grant back and the project will proceed.

“We definitely need the university to keep … doing research like this,” Zenner said.

Tom Conklin, who farms just south of Lewiston, had not yet spent money specifically on the IAMP project and plans on doing some of the practices anyway.

If the project comes back and offsets some of the costs of those practices, that would be helpful, he said.

“Grants like this are a good thing all around because they incentivize people who might not be ready to make that change to go ahead and make that change,” Conklin said. “It would be great if that grant came back.”

He said anything that can be done to incentivize farm practices that are a benefit to everybody is a bonus to everybody and projects like IAMP can help do that.

“There’s a number of people up here making some pretty big changes in how they farm; that’s happening no matter what,” Conklin said. “At the end of the day, it’s how do we get more people to do that?”