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UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UC SAREP) is pleased to announce the release of the request for proposals for our 2023-24 Small Grants Program. The program funds research projects, education and demonstration programs of research-based technologies and systems, and projects that support the development of sustainable community food systems. We hope that these funds will make a modest but meaningful contribution to ongoing learning, innovation, and relationship building in the communities we serve.  

Program Priority Areas

UC SAREP will fund projects that fall within two priority areas: 

1. Support California’s farmers, ranchers, and land stewards of all scales in identifying, piloting, 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 self-organized supply chains;
• strategies that promote producer-to-producer networking and producer-to-supply chain networking

2.  Support California’s rural, urban, and Tribal communities to identify, implement, and evaluate 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

Funding Available

Individual grants will be limited to a maximum of $10,000, with one Applied Research Grant awarded up to $20,000. In the past two years, we have funded approximately 40% of submitted proposals. 

To see previously funded projects: https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/ucsarep-grants

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