The USDA has notified the University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences that work may resume on the Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership, a $59 million grant aimed at supporting farmer-led marketing and production experiments. The program is being restarted after a roughly yearlong pause and is the largest grant in the university’s history. University leaders say the grant will pair production practice research with marketing work to help producers capture premiums for sustainably produced crops.
IAMP is structured as a multi-year effort to test production and marketing approaches that could add value for Idaho growers and buyers. 5-year program language remains part of the grant framework, with researchers and extension staff focused on measurable outcomes from both stewardship practices and market development. The project team plans to track yield, input changes and marketing results so growers and industry partners can evaluate economic and environmental tradeoffs.
More than 200 Idaho farmers from 34 counties already engaged with the original IAMP outreach, applying for incentives across seven commodities. Some producers received payments before the pause; others were still awaiting contract processing when the program was suspended. The university team plans to re-contact that original applicant pool before opening the program to new acres and participants.
Program revisions and staffing
The revised IAMP budget sets aside funds for direct producer incentives and for broader marketing efforts, and the grant will add dedicated staff. The program designates $3.5 million for direct payments to producers and reserves $450,000 for larger, multi-grower or business-led marketing projects. IAMP will hire a marketing specialist and three financial staff, and the grant funds five graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher to support implementation and data collection.
Eligible production practices include reduced tillage, cover cropping, prescribed grazing, intercropping, substitution of some synthetic fertilizers with organic nutrient sources and uses of biochar. Payments are aimed at marketing activities that help producers capture a premium for crops grown with those practices; individual producers can receive Up to $7,500 per year in direct payments to try specified marketing tactics. Field events, grower meetings and regional conferences will showcase practices and results.
Grower outreach and payments
Project leads Erin Brooks, a UI precision agriculture professor, and Doug Finkelnburg, a UI Extension area educator, said the team will streamline enrollment with technical support to move outstanding applications into contracts. "We are going to get a technical support team to help us enroll these people, and we're streamlining the process so it's fairly straightforward and automated," Finkelnburg said. The team hopes to get producers under contract in 2026 as quickly as possible.
IAMP will focus on major Idaho commodities including barley, beef, chickpeas, hops, potatoes, sugar beets and wheat, and data and decision-support tools will be posted at iamp.uidaho.edu for growers and industry stakeholders.
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