Winter Funding Opportunities For Fruit And Vegetable Farmers: Grants For Infrastructure, Equipment, And More!

Dec 08, 2025

We often hear that funding is one of the biggest barriers to farming. Fruit and vegetable farms require a lot of infrastructure and equipment to get started and to scale up production. Take some time this winter to check out the following funding opportunities that can help you pay for equipment, infrastructure, and conservation initiatives.

RSDP farmer climate action funding - applications due January 2. Funding available to MN farmers outside of the 7 county metro for grants up to $8,000 for "shovel-ready" projects that can be completed by December 31, 2026. This grant can cover equipment, renewable energy projects, etc. This money is super flexible and can cover things that other grants cannot. Your soil water conservation district can pay for cover crop seed, EQIP can pay for a high tunnel - what can't be covered by these programs?
Lakewinds Organic Field Fund provides small scholarships for infrastructure, equipment, etc. Their application will be open January 1-30 of 2026, and you can see examples of previously funded projects on their website. Projects funded last year include deer fencing, cold storage, pack shed equipment, a barn, a well, a walk behind tractor, and a self-driving GPS unit retrofitted to an older tractor! Grants are up to $8,000.
Mill City Next Stage Grants provides grants for projects like cold storage, wash/pack areas, deer fences, etc. Application dates are not yet listed, but these should open up over the winter. Last year grants were for up to $7,000. Projects funded last year include a mulch layer, paper pot transplanter system, wind breaks, a greenhouse, pack sheds and cold storage. To be eligible, you must sell at a farmers market in Minnesota (it does not need to be Mill City).

Source : umn.edu

Video: Plot Day

Border View Farms is a mid-sized family farm that sits on the Ohio-Michigan border. My name is Nathan. I make and edit all of the videos posted here. I farm with my dad, Mark and uncle, Phil. We also have a part-time employee, Brock. My dad started the farm in 1980. Since then we have grown the operation from just a couple hundred acres to over 3,000. Watch my 500th video for a history of our farm I filmed with my dad.

I started making these videos in the fall of 2019 as a way to help show what I do on a daily basis as a farmer. Agriculture is different from any other industry and I believe the more people that are showing their small piece of agriculture, helps to build our story. We face unique challenges and stressful situations but have some of the most rewarding payoffs in the end. I get to spend everyday doing what I love, raising my kids on the farm, and trying to push our farm to be better every year. I hope that I can address questions or concerns that you might have about farms and agriculture.

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