Wolfe's Neck Center, which had its $35 million grant for training other farmers ended by the Trump regime has a new project to consider,
News Center Maine - "Our goal was to partner with about 400 producers around the country to provide them technical assistance and to provide them payments to implement practices that USDA and Natural Resources Conservation Service has identified as having environmental benefits when implemented on farms," said Dave Herring, executive director of Wolfe’s Neck Center.
The grant was meant to support farms by improving soil health, increasing biodiversity, and reducing environmental impact over five years.
Some farmers, like Matthew Rose-Stark, owner of Keystone Land and Livestock in California, had already received funding from Wolfe's Neck before the program was canceled. Rose-Stark got about $28,000 to apply compost to his fields, enhancing grass growth for his herd of grass-fed cattle.
"It would have been devastating," Rose-Stark said if he hadn't received the funding. "We paid for everything up front – so we paid for the compost, we paid for the application because we had a signed contract [we] believed would be honored."
Rose-Stark said Wolfe's Neck worked fast to get him the grant money a few weeks before the Trump administration froze the funding earlier this year.
Although the grant cancellation was a setback, Wolfe’s Neck Center may still have a path forward. The USDA has invited them to apply for a new program introduced under the Trump administration: Advancing Markets for Producers. This program is designed to replace the previous climate-smart initiative.
"It’s a different program — it’s a different opportunity," Herring explained. "This new program appears [it] is not taking maybe quite as much of a systems level approach, but I think is really looking at deploying funds to farmers to help support farmers.”
The farm is evaluating the new opportunity and has until late June to apply if they choose to move forward.