Blog

By Lucinda Winter • Executive Director

Those of you who were present at SFA’s February Annual Conference may recall that during my opening remarks I expressed concerns about our 2025 financial stability. The Trump administration had just “frozen” a large number of Federal grant contracts while they were under review, withholding payment for work already performed and pausing ongoing grant activities. As farmers know better than most people, uncertainty is uncomfortable. Without knowing the outcome of this unexpected announcement, all we could do was tighten our belt and plan for a worst-case scenario.

Several months later, we do know the outcome. Several Federal Climate Smart grants which supported our work were terminated by the USDA after review by the new administration. Among them was our long-time partnership with the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA) which supported Angie Walter’s excellent work coaching mentor-mentee apprenticeship pairs as Minnesota Education Coordinator for the program. That work has ended, and we’re grateful that Angie has agreed to continue as a dairy consultant with SFA.

Also terminated was our partnership with The Nature Conservancy as a sub-awardee on their Climate Smart Seedling Production Network (CSSPN). While The Nature Conservancy’s Minnesota Million tree planting initiative will continue, the grant supporting the creation of networks of seedling growers in Minnesota ended and we had to say good-bye to consultants Ryan Sullivan and Stefan Meyer, who were working with SFA to recruit, train and support new seedling producers. While this outcome was very disappointing, it’s my belief that the relationships SFA forged during the two years we worked on the CSSPN project will lead to future collaborations that will benefit the Association and our partners.

Amid these discouraging events, some good things happened. First, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) awarded SFA a $260,000 grant: “Expanding Regenerative Grazing in the Upper Mississippi Watershed.” This funding will help us scale up our Farmer-to-Farmer Consulting program by covering the cost-share portion of consulting fees for farmers and ranchers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa who are seeking technical support with grazing. (Jonathan Kilpatrick did a deep dive on the NFWF grant in a recent blog, which you can read here.)

The Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF) awarded SFA a $20,000 grant to support our Farmer-to-Farmer consulting program in their service area, allowing us to scale up our work with farmers in Southwest Minnesota.

And in June SFA received its largest ever unrestricted gift from a private Minnesota philanthropic foundation. This $250,000 gift is transformational, and we are just now wrapping our arms around its capacity building potential for SFA and for you, our members.

So as the second half of a turbulent 2025 begins, I’m happy to report that your Association is in solid financial health. We have nine chapters fully engaged in producing local events that build community connections and provide a framework for mutual aid, an engaged and productive board of directors, and a growing membership base.

We are focused on the future, exploring how we can creatively utilize the significant new funding we’ve received to offer you additional farmer-to-farmer support and access to financial resources. And we’re looking at ways we can help build chapter capacity. I’ll share more about both initiatives in the coming months.

As for me, I’ll be spending this coming Sunday enjoying the Minnesota River Chapter’s Sowing Seeds event at Brooke and John Knisley’s beautiful organic farm in Madelia. This mid-summer celebration of local foods and lost arts, now in its third year, is a blast –- combining a farmers and makers market, homesteading skills demos, kid’s activities and excellent food. The forecast is for a fine summer day with lots of sun. Perfection. I hope to cross paths with some of you there, or at one of our other upcoming festivals and events. As always, if you’d like to have a conversation with me about your SFA member experience, please reach out to me at lucinda@sfa-mn.org.