Wolf’s Neck Center – Northeast Farmers Fund

>> Enroll in WNC’s Northeast Farms Fund here between Oct 1-14, 2026 

The Northeast Farmers Fund (NEFF), a program of Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, provides funding, technical assistance, and soil analysis to help Northeast farmers adopt or expand regenerative practices while strengthening farm viability and market opportunities. The NEFF is funded collaboratively by public, private, and philanthropic stakeholders.  

Through support from a USDA Advancing Market for Producers Program grant, NEFF will enroll 385 producers across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York and distribute approximately $21.9 million directly to farmers through 2027. 

Funding can support projects related to regenerative production, including equipment, infrastructure, and tools to expand scale and diversity of products; certification and verification; post-harvest handling and value-added processing; and marketing, branding, packaging, and distribution improvements that help farms access new or higher-value markets. NEFF is particularly focused on supporting small- and mid-sized farms that are implementing or transitioning toward regenerative or sustainable production. 

Sign up for alerts about this and other NEFF grant opportunities here. 

Who’s eligible? 

The Northeast Farmers Fund will prioritize farms that:

• Operate in the Northeast region (ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, NY, CT) 

• Are small to mid-sized (between $50,000 and $2,000,000 annual gross farm income) 

• Are working to improve soil health, pasture management, and/or conservation practices 

• Are actively implementing conservation practices  (ex. NRCS Practices, Organic Systems
  Plan, etc.) 

• Are interested in, actively pursuing, or currently maintain sustainability-focused production systems certification, such as organic certification 

• Are interested in expanding market access for regenerative farm products and/or value-added products 

• Have a Farm Service Agency farm number (required for eligibility)

Funding guidelines and an application form preview can be reviewed here. The first application round will be open for two weeks (October 1st through 14th) during which time applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Wolfe’s Neck will assess demand following this initial round and may offer additional application rounds based on available funding and program capacity. 

Note: If you have an AMP project with Pasa, you will not be eligible to apply for the Wolfe’s Neck Northeast Farmer Fund opportunity unless you have documentation of which field numbers and commodities are enrolled with Pasa.