Minnesota SARE Travel Scholarships
Minnesota SARE offers Travel Scholarships to agricultural professionals (ie Extension, NRCS, state and tribal agencies, NGOs, etc) and farmers to participate in professional development opportunities that are related to sustainable agriculture and the Minnesota SARE Initiatives (these include adapting to a changing climate and other food system disruptions, building resilient local food systems, and supporting emerging farmers).
Travel Scholarships are intended to assist ag professionals and farmers to explore topics in sustainable agriculture that are new to them. The goal is then for that individual to share the new information with others via outreach events, presentations, articles, etc. Once a person has used a scholarship to attend an annual conference, our hope is that the educator will seek other funding sources to attend that event in the future. Thus, priority is given to those who have not previously used a Minnesota SARE Travel Scholarship to attend that conference or event.
Recipients are asked to list NCR-SARE as a sponsor during outreach and include the NCR SARE logo where appropriate. To receive payment, Travel Scholarship recipients are required to complete a short survey after the conference/event to show specifically describing how you will use the information in your work, what type of outreach you will conduct (newsletter, blog, presentation, answering client questions, field days, etc.), and how many people (farmers, educators, others) with whom you’ll share the information. We will follow-up again 6-9 months later to measure this impact.
Your application form will be reviewed by the Minnesota Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Advisory Committee. You may be contacted by the SARE coordinator for more information or clarification before a final decision is made on funding. The following criteria will be used in the review:
- Does the conference or event relate to sustainable agriculture?
- Will attending or participating result in new knowledge or skills for the educator or farmer?
- Does the attendee have a strong outreach and education plan to share the knowledge that is learned?
- Does it relate to the current MN SARE initiatives?
- Adapting to a changing climate and other food system disruptions
- Building resilient local food systems
- Supporting emerging farmers
Travel Scholarship Timelines
Applications Accepted
- January 1-31
- May 1-31
- October 1-31
Applicants Informed
- February 15
- June 15
- November 15
Forms