CUSP Climate Extremes Relief Funding

The California Underserved and Small Producer (CUSP) Program helps provide direct farmer grants for extreme weather event relief for small and medium scale California agricultural producers, or small and medium scale Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers (SDFR’s) The CUSP Climate Extremes Grant Program issues up to $20,000 of funding to producers to reimburse them for a wide range of extreme weather conditions and disasters, including heat, and pest quarantines. Applications are mainly evaluated based on the quality of supporting documentation demonstrating losses. CUSP Climate Extremes covers a wide range of climate disasters, including: Flooding High winds Extreme heat/extreme cold Heavy rain/snow/hail Wildfire Smoke from wildfire or other extreme air quality issues Tornado/cyclone Pest quarantine/eradication You may apply for up to two extreme weather events on the same application. Official documentation from a government agency is required for cases of extreme heat, prolonged air quality issues (AQI >150 for a sustained period), and pest quarantine/eradication.

- Applicants must be farming inside California. - Preference is given to family farmers who are actively working the land, derive a portion of their income from their own farm business, and are involved in day-to-day operations on the farm. - Farmers must be grossing less than $400k in annual sales (for produce farmers) or $1,000,000 (for dairy operations) - Farmers can receive up to $20,000 in CUSP funding in a 12-month period, regardless of the granting organization(s).

CAFF will administer the grant process and funding through our online grant management system, Foundant SLM. Go to https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=caff to create an account in Foundant and follow the instructions on the screen.