Agriculture

Breakthrough Energy Fellows Cohort 4

Breakthrough Energy Fellows (BEF) flagship program, the Innovator Fellowship, is designed to accelerate the development of promising early-stage climate technologies. The Fellowship is a full-time commitment for innovators committed to commercializing their climate technology. Typically, Innovator projects have raised less than $2,000,000 in dilutive funding and are legally incorporated prior to program start date of September 2024.

The Explorers Fellowship offers funding for developing breakthrough climate solutions that are earlier stage, higher technical risk, and may not yet be ready to incorporate. Explorers’ projects are typically in a university lab or research entity, and are overseen by professors, faculty members, or full-time researchers who can remain in position for this part-time opportunity.

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AlgaePrize 2023-2025

The AlgaePrize 2023-2025 competition is open to teams of two or more students currently enrolled in a U.S.-based high school, community college, college, university, or graduate program. The competition will span two academic years. Students will learn about the algae industry and will go on to support the nation’s biofuel research, algal commercial enhancement, and promote industry-driven education, training, and workforce development. Competitors will prepare creative solutions for real-world issues in the algae value chain. Students will compete to earn prize money and national recognition.

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Invest TN (Tennessee)

Powered by Launch Tennessee, InvestTN manages two equity capital programs totaling $58M for Tennessee-located early-stage startups: Regional Seed Fund and Technology Fund. Startups at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A or B stages are eligible for an initial investment of $25k to $3M.

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Food and Agriculture Service Learning Program

The purpose of the Food and Agriculture Service Learning Program is to increase the knowledge of agricultural science and improve the nutritional health of children. The program’s goal is to increase the capacity for food, garden, and nutrition education within host organizations or entities, such as school cafeterias and classrooms, while fostering higher levels of community engagement between farms and school systems by bringing together stakeholders from distinct parts of the food system. The initiative is part of a broader effort to not only increase access to school meals for low-income children, but also to dramatically improve their quality.

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Agricultural Conservation Easement Program

The Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) helps landowners, land trusts, and other entities protect, restore, and enhance wetlands or protect working farms and ranches through conservation easements. ACEP has two components:

  • Agricultural Land Easements (ALE) help private and tribal landowners, land trusts, and other entities such as state and local governments protect croplands and grasslands on working farms and ranches by limiting non-agricultural uses of the land through conservation easements.
  • Wetland Reserve Easements (WRE) help private and tribal landowners protect, restore and enhance wetlands which have been previously degraded due to agricultural uses.
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Conservation Stewardship Program

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) helps you build on your existing conservation efforts while strengthening your operation. NRCS works one-on-one with producers to develop a conservation plan that outlines and enhances existing efforts, using new conservation practices or activities, based on management objectives for your operation. Producers implement practices and activities in their conservation plan that expands on the benefits of cleaner water and air, healthier soil and better wildlife habitat, all while improving their agricultural operations.

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Environmental Quality Incentives Program

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is NRCS’ flagship conservation program that helps farmers, ranchers and forest landowners integrate conservation into working lands. NRCS works one-on-one with producers to develop a conservation plan that outlines conservation practices and activities to help solve on-farm resource issues. Producers implement practices and activities in their conservation plan that can lead to cleaner water and air, healthier soil and better wildlife habitat, all while improving their agricultural operations. EQIP helps producers make conservation work for them. Financial assistance for practices may be available through EQIP.  Some producers may also qualify for advance payment.

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Telluride Venture Network

Telluride Venture Network is creating a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem with services typically unavailable in rural communities.

Launched in 2013, TVN is a nationally recognized, award-winning entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports new, innovative and growing businesses by providing capital funds, mentorship programs, acceleration bootcamps, networking sessions, and project demonstrations.

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Innovation Hot Spot (New York)

The Innovation Hot Spot program provides five years of corporate, personal income, and sales tax incentives to qualifying tech or manufacturing companies. These eligible companies receive entrepreneurial services during their enrollment through The Tech Garden as the regional Innovation Hot Spot, or through our incubator partners, to help companies grow in Central New York.

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New England Venture Summit

A select group of more than 100 Top Innovators from the following sectors (Agtech, Climate Tech, Life Science, Transportation, Biotech, and Saas amongst other sectors) will be chosen to showcase their breakthrough investment opportunities to an exclusive audience of Venture Capitalists, Corporate Investors, Private Investors, Investment Bankers, and Strategic Partners.

The summit will take place at the Hilton, Boston, MA on December 12-13, 2023.

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FY2024 Farm to School Grants

The Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program is designed to increase the availability of local foods in schools and help connect students to the sources of their food through education, taste tests, school gardens, field trips, and local food sourcing for school meals. Grants can launch new farm to school programs or expand existing efforts.

The fiscal year (FY) 2024 Farm to School Grant awards projects of 24 months in length for funding up to $500,000. Applicants are required to provide matching support of at least 25 percent of the total project budget in the form of cash or in-kind contributions. The RFA offers three tracks – Implementation, State Agency, and Turnkey – to support a variety of projects and implementation stages.

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CalTestBed (California)

Early-stage clean energy entrepreneurs face challenges in accessing testing facilities as they progress towards commercialization. The CalTestBed Initiative is a voucher program that assists clean energy entrepreneurs in gaining access to critical testing facilities. It expedites their pathway to commercialization through connection to a network of next-level partners.

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