HOW I GOT $50,000 IN GRANTS TO FUND MY BACKYARD FARM!

What if I told you I built my backyard farm with tens of thousands of dollars in federal grants—money you don’t have to pay back? In this video, I share my journey of transforming a small suburban yard into a thriving, six-figure farm with the help of USDA grants and creative funding strategies. From high tunnels to drip irrigation systems, I’ll explain how I secured this funding, tips to increase your chances of approval, and how you can do the same to grow your farm. Don’t miss these insider secrets that could revolutionize your farm’s future!

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[Music] [Applause] [Music] what if I told you I built this entire farm with the help of tens of thousands of dollars in federal grants money you don’t have to pay back I also secured tens of thousands of dollars in interest free loans with up to 21 months to pay back with no interest about 5 years ago I turned my Suburban backyard into a thriving profitable vegetable farm and in today’s video I’m going to show you exactly how I funded it and how you can too hey what’s up everybody welcome back to the Garden if you’re new to the channel I’m Chef Mikey I’m a former executive chef turned Urban Farmer and this is my backyard that’s my house right up there when we bought this property we had no plans to start a commercial vegetable operation we just wanted a small piece of land to grow our own food I was working a full-time job and gardening on the weekends but I quickly realized I was spending about $300 a week on my gardening hobby to offset costs I started selling some of my extra produce at work that’s when I decided to form an LLC so I could write off my expenses at first I funded everything out of pocket with money from my job I’d sell extra veggies to co-workers and reinvest every dollar I made back into the garden I even went as far as making posts on Facebook for produce for sale stating that all money will go towards my Greenhouse funds this made it more fun for my friends to purchase from me because they knew what the money was going towards and they could watch it all evolve as I posted updates and they could see the green houses being built on social media I built my first three green hous using 0% interest credit cards with 12 to 21 months to pay them off these cards even gave statement credits like $900 if you spend $3,000 in the first 90 days which essentially gave me a $900 discount on my green houses it’s important to note that these are business credit cards that have high limits and large statement credits and they’re not typically available to individuals understand you must first form a business to qualify for these types of credit cards and for these large purchases to be tax deductible for me I have a single member LLC I also have an agricultural tax exemption so I do not pay sales tax on these large purchases I would highly recommend forming an actual business and getting a tax exemption before you start making infrastructure purchases otherwise you’re just giving away free money to the government for no good reason it should also be noted that I had the cash on hand to pay for these purchases with a solid plan on how is going to pay back the debt before I acred any interest typically one shoulder season crop can pay the entire balance of one of these high tunnels that I bought but if anything were to go wrong you need to have a way to get yourself out of debt by no means am I recommending that anyone buy a high tunnel on a credit card if you don’t already have the cash on hand I simply leveraged my outstanding credit score to get the $900 statement credit and 21 months of Interest free payments so I could keep my cash on hand for working capital but if I got myself in a jam with the payments I had the cash to pay it off but when I quit my job and relied solely on the farm to pay my bills it became too risky to put up my own money I had savings but I didn’t want to drain them I remembered a YouTube video I’d seen about nrcs high tunnel grants I tried to Google information about how to get a high tunnel from the nrcs and it’s not as easy to find the information I was looking for deep down at felt like a high tunnel Grant was probably not something a guy like me would qualify for since I was just farming on a quarter acre in my Suburban backyard I didn’t think they’d take me seriously but after I did some digging on the internet I found an email address and I sent an email to ask how I would go about applying for a high tunnel Grant the next day a lady from the USDA and the nrcs came out and talked to me at my farm she was super impressed with what I had accomplished on my own she also helped me apply for for an irrigation Grant low tunnel Grant and a grant to install water lines from the main line directly into the garden for more efficient irrigation hookups but it’s not as simple as just filling out an online form and getting a check USDA has lots of paperwork and the processes can take time after the lady left that day it took about a year before I ever heard from her again I just kind of rote it off and I ended up purchasing my next high tunnel out of pocket but then out of the blue I got a phone call from the USDA to tell me I’ve been approved for a high tunnel with irrigation low tunnel and to have the water line installed it was a total of around $112,000 on that first round of funding my patients paid off once I was approved I ordered my fourth farmer friend caterpillar tunnel and got it installed right away I also created an efficient low tunnel system using 10-ft pieces of electrical conduit that I bent into Hoops using a 4ft hoop Bender that I bought from Johnny selected seeds I bought a pool cover roller and a thft roll of agrion 50 I designed an efficient low tunnel system so I can efficiently protect my garden from Frost with only minutes of work rather than hours like it took me before the low tunnel Grant was like 1,500 bucks for 300 Square ft which was a ton of money to cover 300 ft of garden space so I spent all the money on enough materials to cover my entire Garden so when they came to to look at it they asked why did you do more than 300 Square ft I told them you gave me way too much money for 300 Square ft so I just went ahead and spent it all so I could cover my whole garden they said okay well I’ll get you more money since you covered more than the planned amount but I don’t think I can get you more than 2500 bucks I said I’ll take it and they sent me a deposit for even more money than we planned also my Garden’s on an 8% slope but the nrcs standards state that they will not pay for a high tunnel on more than a 5% grade they told me I would need to get it graded before I built my high tunnel I looked at them and I said absolutely not no one’s driving any type of heavy machinery in my garden that would be a complete deal breaker and i’ just pay for it out of pocket if that’s the case I explained to them that I spent years building up my soil using no till practices and always keeping the soil covered with compost and wood chip mulches having any type of heavy machinery back here do far more damage than it would improvements I showed them how I constructed my previous three High tunnels by digging trenches in between them so water flows away from the garden and I lined The Trenches with wood chip mulch to eliminate any potential for erosion due to runoff from the high tunnels and after a little back and forth they finally agreed with me that it would do far more damage than it would good to have the land graded and they allowed an exception for me to build the high tunnel on an 8% grade I just share this with you so you can understand that it’s okay to challenge their standards as long as you can give them reasons which make practical sense as to why their protocol might not make sense for your context what I’ve learned is everything is a caseby casee situation and exceptions can be made but it’s important to know that grants like this aren’t a free handout they’re funding programs you’ll need to purchase the equipment build the infrastructure yourself and once you’ve completed the project the nrcs will reimburse you a set amount per square foot for example when I was approved for a high tunnel Grant they didn’t just hand me a greenhouse I had to pay for it up front and build it myself but they reimbursed me for the entire cost after I finished building it they typically pay by the square foot for example it doesn’t matter if you spend $1,000 on your high tunnel or $100,000 on your high tunnel they will just pay you around $3 to5 per square foot so it might not always cover the entire cost but it’ll at least cover some of the cost depending on what size and additional features you might have like automated rollup sides or heaters I went the lowtech route and bought Farmers friend caterpillar tunnels it not only covered the entire cost but even a little extra I think I made like a hundred bucks for building mine after it was all said and done they also paid for the irrigation in the high tunnel they don’t ever seem to care about how much money I spend or don’t spend they just pay out the same same amount either way it’s either by the linear foot for water infrastructure or by the square foot for everything else one thing to keep in mind is the usca doesn’t make the process as easy as possible because they want to make sure that you’re serious about fulfilling your commitment otherwise there would be lots of people applying to get free high tunnel grants they’re not actually capable of falling through with the obligation once you’ve completed the project and met their standards the reimbursement comes through and it’s a huge boost for your farm bottom line and gives you the resources to expand more quickly than if you were funding everything on your own by using grants for my high tunnels low tunnels and drip irrigation I was able to create a more efficient profitable operation and once I had these systems in place I could use the extra Capital to reinvest in my business hire help and expand even further applying for the grants isn’t easy there’s no online application the paperwork’s extensive and the funding is competitive each county has a limited pool of funds however being an Urban Farmer in Knoxville Tennessee gave me an edge unlike agriculturally dense areas there aren’t many farms in the city fewer applications means there’s less competition so if you’re an Urban Farmer like me you might find it easier to receive this type of funding than someone in a more competitive area completing the projects immediately and meeting their standards not only ensured I got reimbursed quickly but also made made me a standout example of how these grants can work the nrcs was so impressed that they’ve invited me to join their subcommittee to the board of directors for their Urban agriculture initiative to help other Farmers achieve similar success a pretty cool achievement for someone who’s never worked on a farm in my life but I didn’t stop there I started asking more questions there’s codes on the bottoms of these papers what are those how do I get more do you have any other grants well it turns out they do and I qualified this year I received another high tunnel Grant grants for mulching and cover cropping where they pay me $6,000 a year for the next 5 years to implement cover crops and mulching that’s $35,000 just for doing what I already do and another several thousand to turn my sidey yard into a pollinator habitat we’ll be building the next high tunnel this month and we’ve already tarped the area for the pollinator habitat which will be planted next spr spring I’ll be sure to share all the projects with you as we get them completed receiving these grants at my homebased property allowed me to reinvest and expand when I gained access to lease land on a friend’s property I had the capital to develop without any Financial strain I’ve now applied for the same grants on the leased property and given my track record and connections within the USDA and the nrcs I’m optimistic about getting approved these grants will help take my farming operation to the next level so you might be wondering how can you get these grants for your farmer Garden well the first things first there’s no easy online form the process can be a bit intimidating because there’s lots of paperwork involved but don’t let that scare you off the first step is walk right into the local USDA or nrcs office don’t call don’t email go in person and start talking to the person at the front desk they might not be immediately available but showing up in person will really get their attention anyone can send an email but very few people make the effort to walk in and ask questions face to face that’s how you’ll get noticed once you’re there you’ll schedule a visit with an nrcs representative this person will assess your farm or garden and talk to you about your goals and help you determine which grants you qualify for now when they come out to your operation make sure everything looks clean and organized the last thing you want them to see is a messy Farm you want them to see a professional operation that they’d like to invest in this about building trust and credibility and don’t be afraid to ask questions many of the people who work for the USDA and the nrcs might not even know about some of these grants a lot of them are fresh out of college and learning the ropes themselves I asked about codes I saw in the paperwork grants I’d never heard of they didn’t know what those grants were at first but they went out of their way to find out and that’s how I secured the cover cropping and pollinator habitat ATT grants so ask those questions even if it feels like you’re pushing the limit if they don’t know they’ll find out for you and if you think it’s a long shot ask anyways the worst thing they can do is say no and you’re in the same position you were in before but the best case scenario you might get funding for something you never imagined for example I asked for funding to install 20,000 gallons of rainwater catchment and they said not in this round but maybe in the future it wasn’t a flat out no it’s just a not this time pal but whatever I I didn’t care if they said no because what if they said yes so if you’re thinking about starting your own Market Garden or you’re already in the game I got plenty more videos on my channel to help you with everything from starting your farm to making it profitable so good luck with your Grant applications and I’ll see y’all in the next one thanks y’all