The Call for Pre-proposals for the Southern SARE Professional Development Program Grant is now open.

The Professional Development Program (PDP) provides funding to agricultural professionals to train Cooperative Extension agents, USDA field personnel, and other ag professionals and educators in sustainable agriculture production practices. Training activities may include webinars, seminars, workshops, farm tours, on-farm demonstrations or the marketing and distribution of training materials. Activities may take place in a single state, multiple states or the entire Southern region.

The deadline to submit a Pre-proposal is August 31, 2020 at 5 p.m. EST.

Selected pre-proposal candidates are invited by email to submit a full proposal in October. Full proposal applications must be submitted by November 13, 2020 and will be awarded by February 2021.

Download the Call for Proposals and carefully read the application instructions. All information on the guidelines, program goals, review criteria and information on the submission process is found within the Call for Proposal. Failure to follow the submission guidelines may result in the rejection of your Southern SARE Professional Development Program Grant proposal.

To be considered for funding a project must meet the following two criteria:

• Project outcomes must focus on developing sustainable agriculture systems or moving existing systems toward sustainability.
• A project’s central purpose must be to provide or enable training. Research projects, farmer-outreach or education projects do not qualify for this funding.

There is no set amount of grant funding, however priority will be given to proposals less than $80,000 in order to fund a broad portfolio of projects.

For more information on sustainable agriculture, visit the Southern SARE website.