Grants Available to North Dakota Farmers to Improve Energy Efficiency

By Ann Bailey, Agweek Magazine -- June 15

USDA has grants available for farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses who want to buy renewable energy systems or improve energy efficiency.

The agency's Rural Development division announced in May it has up to $22.8 million available in competitive grants. The five-year program was created in the 2002 farm bill and is open to applicants who demonstrate financial need.

Last year, USDA allocated $21.7 million to assist 114 applicants in 24 states, USDA Rural Development says. In Minnesota, 22 applicants received about 20 percent of the total U.S. funding, says David Gaffaney, business program specialist for USDA Rural Development in Minnesota.

Twenty of the applicants received funding for wind energy projects and two were awarded funding for anaerobic digesters, Gaffaney says.

A single applicant received funding in North Dakota, in South Dakota and in Montana in 2003. The North Dakota applicant received about $10,000, the Montana applicant about $37,000 and the South Dakota applicant about $60,000, say USDA Rural Development spokesmen in the three states.

Interest in the renewable energy and energy efficiency grant program is high in Montana and South Dakota this year, the Rural Development spokesmen say.

"We have had a lot of phone calls, a lot of e-mails," says Dale Van Eckhout, who heads USDA Rural Development in North Dakota.

In Montana, 450 people attended wind energy meetings held across the state earlier this spring and John Guthmiller, USDA Rural Development cooperative program director in Montana, expects some of those individuals will be interested in applying for the grant money.

The deadline to apply for the grant money is July 19.

"Applicants must make sure they provide all of the information requested," notes Gary Korzan, USDA Rural Development cooperative development director in South Dakota. Because applications are scored by people who must consider a lot of them, filling out the application clearly and completely will improve the applicants' chances of being awarded funding, he believes.

Korzan suggests applicants fill out the application "recipe" style. They should submit all information requested, even if they all ready have provided it earlier in the application, he says.

"If it says 'do it again,' do it again."

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