USDA reinstates $59M University of Idaho farming grant

MOSCOW, Idaho — The largest grant in the University of Idaho’s history — which incentivizes farmers statewide to experiment with creative marketing strategies and resilient production practices — has been reinstated in its entirety after a yearlong pause.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) notified officials with the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) and their partners in April that they may resume work on the five-year, $59 million Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership (IAMP) program.

More than 200 Idaho farmers representing 34 counties applied for incentives across seven commodities through the original IAMP program, which was approved in 2024 as part of USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. However, USDA terminated IAMP in April 2025 based on new criteria that retroactively placed greater emphasis on helping producers access new market opportunities and increased the minimum percentage of funding awarded to farmers from half to 65% of the total. The agency invited IAMP leaders to revise the program to meet the new standards and reapply, though the federal government shutdown further delayed the process.

The IAMP team, led by Erin Brooks, a professor in the Department of Soil and Water Systems, and Doug Finkelnburg, area Extension educator in cropping systems, plans to reengage with the original pool of growers before potentially accepting applications for new acres. Some growers had already received IAMP payments when the program was paused, while others on the list were still waiting for their application to be processed.

“We are going to get a technical support team to help us enroll these people, and we’re streamlining the process so it’s fairly straightforward and automated,” Finkelnburg said. “Our hope is to get producers under contract in 2026 as quickly as we can.”

Other IAMP partners include The Nature Conservancy, Desert Mountain Grass-Fed Beef and the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) and Schitsu’umsh (Coeur d’Alene) tribes.

The revised version of IAMP designates $3.5 million for direct payments of up to $7,500 per year for participating producers to try specified marketing activities intended to capture a premium for crops raised using regenerative practices. Another $450,000 is reserved for larger marketing projects, potentially involving groups of growers, or even businesses, to implement a marketing program.

IAMP will hire a marketing specialist, who will study outcomes of participants’ marketing efforts, and three financial staff members.

Eligible IAMP practices include reduced tillage, cover cropping, prescribed grazing, intercropping, reducing use of synthetic fertilizers in favor of organic nutrient sources and biochar use. Projects will involve major commodities produced in the state, including barley, beef, chickpeas, hops, potatoes, sugar beets and wheat.

“For a producer, this is an excellent opportunity to try things that you haven’t tried before, that are high risk but potentially high reward,” Brooks said. “From the industry perspective, they’re looking at stewardship and they’re looking at producing healthier foods from healthy soils. The markets want to know more information about this, and the more we can provide tangible data and research that gives confident numbers on the impacts of these adopted practices, the better off we are.”

Data from the project will help producers make informed decisions about how regenerative farming practices may affect their bottom line.

Research projects involving incentivized practices will continue at U of I research and Extension centers and the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Farm under the new IAMP program. However, some of the original research objectives, such as required on-farm soil sampling and in-field baseline comparisons, have been scaled back to direct more funding toward marketing efforts.

The revised IAMP program includes funding to hire five graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher to aid in implementation of the grant.

IAMP plans to host field events to show the public program practices on the ground throughout the state, and data generated through IAMP will be shared at grower meetings, field days, regional conferences and other events catering to Idaho farmers. IAMP research updates and farming decision support tools will also be posted at iamp.uidaho.edu.

The program aims to enable participating farmers to evaluate incentivized practices to adopt as part of their long-term management approaches.

“The practices we’re incentivizing will help make the farms more resilient to risk,” Finkelnburg said. “We’re incentivizing practices that build soil carbon, increase water storage in soils and make it less risky to do production agriculture.”

Media contact

Doug Finkelnburg
Area Extension educator in cropping systems
208-799-3096
dougf@uidaho.edu

Erin Brooks
Professor, Department of Soil and Water Systems
208-885-6562
ebrooks@uidaho.edu