Agriculture program taking off at UI

The first round of the Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership is over but the work is only beginning.

The Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership program is led by the University of Idaho and offers technical and financial assistance to farmers and ranchers who want to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices and create a market for those products, according to a news release from the UI program. Sanford Eigenbrode, a university professor of entomology, is a co-leader of the project along with Erin Brooks, professor of agricultural engineering.

The first round ended Sept. 11 and as of Sept. 6 there have been 50 applicants.

“That’s about the pace we were hoping (for) in our round one so I consider that a success,” Eigenbrode said.

Participants can work with either Desert Mountain Grass Fed Beef, the Schitsu’umsh (Coeur d’Alene) Tribe, Nez Perce Tribe and the Nature Conservancy. Participants can list more than one group to work with on the project, according to a news release from the UI program.

The applications are also well distributed across the state and across the commodities, Eigenbrode said. Climate-smart practices include no- or reduced-tillage, conversation crop rotation, interseeding, prescribed grazing, nutrient management, and nutrient management with manure or compost, according to a news release from the UI program.

The program is open to producers of potatoes, sugar beets, wheat, barley, hops, chickpeas and beef. The program gives priority to underserved farmers and ranchers including veterans, women, those with 10 or fewer years of experience, those who are socially disadvantaged who face racial or ethnic prejudices, and farmers whose annual gross sales are below $100,000, according to a news release from the UI program.

The goal is to enroll 100,000 acres of Idaho farmland, preventing 31,000 to 70,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, according to previous reporting in the Lewiston Tribune. The Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership at the UI started working on funding for six months and then in May 2023 “began putting our wheels on the tracks,” Eigenbrode said, by organizing partners and starting the paperwork procedures for the applications.

After the applications are closed, the partners will go through to make sure they are eligible and begin phase two, which is when the applicants sign up. Then it’s a matter of getting the applicants ready to go with where they want to go and what growing practices they want to do, Eigenbrode said.

“Our goal is to at the end of the month have some of these folks all the way to contract,” he said.

There are some that are close to contract because they were selected in round zero, which was conducted to test the system.

The program is funded through a five-year, $55 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Idaho will have $31 million that will go to Idaho producers. The Nature Conservancy also contributed a $96,327 match. Incentives for producers to join the program range from $38 to $74 per acre or $1 per head for grazing cover crops on an annual basis, according to a news release from the UI program.

Funds are still available, so there will be multiple rounds of applications, Eigenbrode said. There will likely be one more round this fall and then again in the spring.

“We are still going to be pushing hard to do that,” he said. “It depends on how the first round looks and goes.”

The application can be completed at iamp.uidaho.edu.

“We’re on the road and we’re going strong,” Eigenbrode said.

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.