Glossary
Small farm funding glossary
Plain-English definitions of the USDA acronyms and terms every small farmer runs into.
- Conservation plan
- The free plan you develop with your local NRCS conservationist that identifies which practices to fund. It's step one for EQIP/CSP money, not paperwork after an award.
- Continuous signup / ranking pool
- How EQIP and CSP take applications: any day of the year, then batched and scored against others in periodic ranking pools by each state's cutoff dates. Earlier is better; nothing is 'due' on a single date.
- CSP
- Conservation Stewardship Program — pays annual per-acre rates for whole-operation stewardship over a 5-year contract, for farms already doing conservation who want to do more.
- EQIP
- Environmental Quality Incentives Program — the NRCS program that pays fixed amounts for conservation practices you implement (fencing, cover crops, high tunnels, irrigation). A contract, not a competitive grant.
- FSA farm number
- A free record established at your local Farm Service Agency office that identifies your farm to USDA. It's the gateway to nearly every program — EQIP, OCCSP, FSA loans, disaster aid. No minimum acreage.
- Historically underserved
- A USDA status for beginning (10 years or less), limited-resource, and veteran farmers. Self-certify at the Service Center to unlock set-aside pools, higher payment rates, and advance payments.
- Microloan
- An FSA loan up to $50,000 with a simplified application, built for small and beginning operations. A loan, not a grant — despite what many listicles claim.
- OCCSP
- Organic Certification Cost Share Program — reimburses 75% of organic certification costs, up to $750 per scope. Not competitive; apply at your FSA office.
- Practice payment
- A fixed payment NRCS makes for each conservation practice you install, set by a state payment schedule (which varies by state and year).
- REAP
- Rural Energy for America Program — funds renewable energy and efficiency projects. Grants are paused as of 2026 pending new rules; guaranteed loans remain open.
- SAM.gov / UEI
- The free federal registration and Unique Entity ID required for grants that run through Grants.gov, like VAPG and REAP. Start it at least a month before a deadline.
- SARE
- Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education — USDA-funded, regionally run producer grants for on-farm research and demonstration.
- VAPG
- Value-Added Producer Grant — a competitive USDA grant to individual producers turning raw products into value-added goods (cheese, jam, agritourism). Requires a 1:1 match.
Farm programs hide behind acronyms. Here’s the plain-English version of the ones that decide what you can get.
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