Farm to Food Security Grant Q&A

There are two questions in the Farm to Food Security Grant application about MDA/State of Minnesota employment.

• In the first question, “Relation to MDA,” applicants must attest that they are not an MDA employee, their spouse or domestic partner is not an MDA employee, nor is the farm/business that is applying principally owned by an employee of the MDA or their spouse or domestic partner, as that would make them ineligible to apply.
• The following question, “Applicant leadership,” asks that applicants disclose (a) if an MDA employee or their spouse/domestic partner is involved in the applicant organization's leadership; or (b) if the applicant is a State of Minnesota employee (in another agency besides the MDA), the spouse or domestic partner of a State of Minnesota employee, or if the farm or business is principally owned by one of them. If the answer to either part is yes, a follow-up question will appear that asks for the name(s) of the employees and their role(s) in the applicant’s organization. The disclosure is required to determine if there may be any conflicts of interest.

Yes, farms, including direct-to-consumer operations, are eligible to apply. You must have the capacity to distribute food to Minnesotans experiencing food insecurity. If you plan to distribute food from your own farm, review the Conflicts of Interest section of the RFP before applying.

Note: On March 6, 2026, the RFP was updated to add additional information about collaboration and clarify information about submitting letters of support.

It’s up to applicants to determine the best way to structure projects that involve multiple organizations. Eligible organizations that plan to collaborate on a project may submit a joint application. If you submit a joint application, you must determine which organization or entity will have the grant contract agreement with the MDA and will work with the MDA to meet grant reporting requirements. This entity will receive an IRS Form 1099 from the State of Minnesota for income tax purposes.

You must submit a letter of commitment from all collaborators formally involved in the project. Examples of formal involvement include being paid grant funds, distributing food purchased with the grant, or having a contractual relationship with the lead grantee organization. You may also provide letters of support from collaborators that are not part of the formal partnership as part of the application, but who support the application and can speak to the benefits of the project in your community.

Collaborative projects often require additional documentation when requesting reimbursement. An example would be if food shelves in the network purchase products directly from farmers/vendors in their areas and then invoice the lead state-wide organization for those costs as part of the grant project. In that case, the lead organization would need to provide the original proofs of purchase and payment from the food shelf to the farmer and vendor, and the secondary level of proofs of purchase and payment that show the lead organization has paid the food shelves for these costs. 
 

Applicants can decide the best way to distribute the food according to the needs of their communities. That could include distributing food through your own direct service program or through partner organizations. In the application, you should describe a clear plan with the partner agencies for tracking food distributions to individuals and families with need and how you will ensure that distribution will only take place in Minnesota.

If partner agencies are a separate legal entity, they may also apply. However, you must have a clear plan to keep purchases and expenses related to your grant project and any partners’ grant projects separate. For example, staff time at a partner agency to distribute food could not be reimbursed by both grants, so you will need to accurately distinguish which grant project this cost should be allocated to.

Yes, we expect most grant contract agreements to start on July 1, 2026, but you can decide when to actually start your project. Grant projects must be completed by June 30, 2028. Grant contract agreements may not be extended.

Yes, you can buy foods grown and raised anywhere in Minnesota. See the Eligible Food Expenses section of the RFP for more detailed eligibility requirements for food purchases.

Yes, you can distribute food in multiple counties as long as all the food distributions take place in Minnesota. See the Eligible Food Distribution section of the RFP for specific eligibility requirements for food distribution.

This RFP does not include a specific definition for “individuals whose needs are not met through the traditional emergency food system,” because the needs of every community are different.

The application asks you to explain your definition of community for the purpose of this project (geographic, cultural, etc.). It also asks you to describe connections you have to individuals whose needs are not met through the traditional emergency food system and how your distribution plan goes beyond the traditional emergency food/hunger relief distribution structures to meet the needs of those individuals.

There’s a wide range of ways to meet needs that are not currently met by the traditional emergency food system. Examples could include, but are not limited to:

• Providing culturally relevant or traditional foods.
• Making food distributions more accessible to people with disabilities.
• Expanding food distributions into very rural areas.
• Using a new outreach approach to reach people whose needs have not previously been met. 

No, individuals cannot have required conditions placed on them to receive the food. This means you cannot mandate attendance at training, classes, services, or meetings.

Food has to be made available to people who need food. The implementation of that depends on how your program is structured, how you will do outreach, and how you will offer food to those who need it.

• An example of distribution model that would be ineligible is a senior center checking identification at the door to verify age prior to giving someone food or a hospital requiring food recipients to have a specific medical diagnosis in order to get food.
• An example of a distribution model that would be eligible is distributing food at a school, senior center, or clinic. The target recipients would be students, seniors, or patients, because they are the people that tend to visit these locations. However, if someone else came, that wasn’t a student, senior, or patient, and they needed food too, the food would have to be made available to them.

One exception is that Tribal communities are allowed to offer food specifically for Tribal members.

While farmers and food businesses with capacity to distribute food are eligible to apply, generally grantees may not purchase foods or other items and services from farms owned/operated by staff or board members, or from other individuals with whom they have an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest, which includes purchasing food from a farm owned by the applicant. In the Food Procurement section of the application, applicants are asked to address what steps they have taken or will take to ensure that any conflicts of interest between their organization and vendors (including their own farm) are mitigated and how they will establish fair and competitive prices with vendors (including their own farm).

If a farmer is awarded a grant and they want to consider making purchases from their own farm, they must submit a conflict-of-interest disclosure and mitigation plan to the MDA for pre-approval. The plan must address how they plan to mitigate the conflict of interest arising from buying food and/or other services from their own farm, how they have and will meaningfully involve non-board/staff members outside their farm, how they will ensure prices are fair and competitive, and how they will follow the State’s bidding requirements when applicable.

Generally, grantees may not purchase foods or other items and services from staff, board members, farms owned/operated by staff or board members, or other individuals with whom they have an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest. However, farmers’ markets, and other farmer-led organizations are eligible applicants, that often have boards and staff made up of farmers from whom they may want to consider purchasing food for their projects. If grantees want to consider any of these individuals/organizations when making purchases, they must submit a conflict-of-interest disclosure and mitigation plan to the MDA for pre-approval.

This is a new program, and we are still working developing a template that you can use to submit the required conflict-of-interest disclosure and mitigation plans if selected for an award. You can expect that you will need to disclose the names of farms/vendors you plan to purchase from that also have a role in your board or staff. You will also need to address how you will mitigate conflicts of interest when purchasing food and other services from them. This may include your plan for identifying and selecting farmers/vendors, how you will ensure prices are fair and competitive, how you will follow the State’s bidding requirements when applicable, and how you have and will meaningfully involve non-board/staff members.

A farmer who applies for a grant and wants to distribute and be reimbursed for food from their own farm will need to submit a conflict-of-interest disclosure and mitigation plan to the MDA for pre-approval if they are awarded a grant. The plan will address how they plan to mitigate the conflict of interest arising from buying food and/or other services from their own farm. It will also describe the documentation they will provide to the MDA to document the fair value of their products when requesting reimbursement.

A farmer who partners on a project where a local food shelf or other external organization serves as the lead applicant would likely avoid the need to create a conflict-of-interest disclosure and mitigation plan, because the external organization would be purchasing the food from them as well as other producers and would be able to provide proof of payment.

The MDA does not purchase products directly from farmers as part of the Farm to Food Security Grant program. Grantees will be responsible for identifying and selecting Minnesota farmers/vendors and deciding which products and amounts to purchase from these farmers/vendors.

Because formal agreements can help farmers establish loans and financial assistance, the scoring criteria gives preference to projects that plan to offer written, formal purchasing agreements or contracts to farmers participating in the project. These agreements establish a plan with farmers and express the grantee’s intent to purchase specific items and quantities from the participating farmers during a particular timeframe.

The MDA does not purchase products directly from farmers as part of the Farm to Food Security Grant program. Grantees will be responsible for determining the payment structure and timing to farmers/vendors for foods purchased for their projects.

Grant funds are disbursed to grantees on a reimbursement basis. Project expenses must be purchased and paid for prior to requesting reimbursement (i.e., grantees must pay farmers/vendors before the MDA will reimburse the grantee for foods purchased for their grant project).
 

The MDA does not purchase products directly from farmers as part of the Farm to Food Security Grant program. Grantees will be responsible for determining any packaging requirements for farmers/vendors participating in their project.

Grantees must follow all applicable federal, state, Tribal, and local regulations regarding food safety, aggregation, procurement, and licensing; and have a clear system in place to monitor and control food safety risks. This may mean they need to establish packaging standards for the farmers/vendors participating in their project.

Yes, in general, buying and aggregating food from multiple suppliers will require a food license from the MDA or a local city or county health agency. You can contact MDA’s Food Licensing Liaison to find out which licensing requirements apply.

No, in general, fruit and vegetable farmers selling products of their farm or garden usually do not need a food license. The MDA website provides a list of exclusions and exemptions from food licensing. You can contact MDA’s Food Licensing Liaison to find out which licensing requirements apply. The MDA has information about buying and selling locally grown produce on our website.

No, there is no cap on the size or revenue of farms or companies that grantees may purchase food from. The scoring criteria of this grant program does include priority points for projects that source at least 70% of food from farmers with limited land access or limited market access).

Limited land access (MINN. STAT. 17.133, subd. 1) is a designation given to a farmer who:

• Does not own farmland, AND
• Leases or rents land, EITHER:
  • With a three-year-or-shorter term agreement from a person who is not related to the individual or the individual's spouse by blood or marriage (a direct family member, as defined below), OR
  • From an incubator farm.

Limited market access is a designation given to a farmer who sells less than $100,000 of their farm products per year (MINN. STAT. 17.133, subd. 1).

The definition of limited market access refers to individual farmers. Even if a nonprofit farm sells less than $100,000 of their farm products annually, the entity itself would not be considered limited market access farmer, because it is a 501c3 entity and not an individual farmer.

However, a nonprofit farm incubator, hosting individual farmers and selling their product, would be able to consider those products as being sourced from farmers with limited market access, as long as the farmers sell less than $100,000 of their farm products per year.

Food purchases do not need to be from farmers with limited land or market access to be eligible. Therefore, there is no requirement to prove purchases are from farmers with limited land or market access.

However, the scoring criteria of this grant program does include priority points for projects that source at least 70% of food from farmers with limited land access or limited market access. The grant application narrative asks applicants to describe a clear and realistic plan source food from farmers with limited land access or limited market access, and you may wish to describe how you plan to track those food purchases, whether bought directly from the farmer or bought through an aggregator.

Note: Grantees will be required to prove that foods bought via food hubs, distributors, farmers’ markets, and aggregators were grown, raised, or produced in Minnesota, and all foods must maintain source preservation to the extent that the origin of the local product or ingredient is identifiable. Food items purchased through an intermediary vendor like a distributor, aggregator, food hub, or farmers’ market or from a manufacturer of processed foods will need to be approved by MDA grant staff as Minnesota-eligible food purchases.

Products purchased from producers listed in the “Minnesota Grown” directory are not automatically eligible. While the Minnesota Grown directory is a great place to start to identify potential farmers and vendors for your grant project, we cannot guarantee that every item sold by all members will meet the eligibility requirements for this grant program. Eligible food products must meet the criteria listed in the Eligible Food Expenses section of the RFP.

No, at this time we do not plan to provide grantees with a list of eligible farmers selling whole or minimally processed foods. Applicants will need to make a realistic plan for identifying farmers/vendors, including farmers with limited land access or limited market access, if applicable.

For processed and aggregated foods, the MDA will need to be able to confirm that the products are Minnesota-eligible, meaning they contain at least 80% food or primary ingredients grown or raised in Minnesota. We are considering maintaining a list of food products from intermediary vendors like food hubs or from a manufacturer of processed foods have been approved as eligible. To be included on the list, these vendors will need to certify that their product(s) meet the definition of foods grown or raised in Minnesota.

No, agricultural production or input costs, including labor to grow food, are not an eligible grant expense.

Staff time for the grantee organization to make purchases from farmers, coordinate with distribution sites, pack food boxes for distribution, manage distribution events, compile grant reporting, and prepare reimbursement costs are considered administrative costs.

Food transportation costs that are ordinarily part of procuring foods are eligible as food costs. For example, delivery fees charged by a vendor to move food from the farm/producer’s location to the grantee’s location or initial point in the grantee’s distribution network or mark-ups that are normally charged by the vendor or food distributor, may be eligible as food costs. In most cases, these costs must be built into food prices or billed on the same invoice from the vendor as food costs as separate line items. These costs will be subject to additional review by the MDA for eligibility and to ensure the costs are reasonable.

Generally, costs for the grantee organization to pick up and deliver food will be considered an administrative expense.

We know food aggregation and distribution models can vary. If you are not certain if transportation costs are an eligible part of your food expenses or an administrative cost, you should check with us first. We will ask you to explain the steps in your supply chain, and from there we can determine if the expense would be considered part of your food costs or an administrative cost.

Yes, the costs to provide minimal processing of food may be eligible as food costs but are subject to additional review by the MDA for eligibility. In most cases, these costs must be provided by the vendor selling the food product and built into food prices or billed on the same invoice as food costs as separate line items.

In some cases, the costs of light processing provided by a processor who is not the original farmer/vendor of the food may be eligible. Processing services will only be considered an eligible food cost if they are for processing food purchased for your Farm to Food Security Grant funds or your matching funds; processing costs for food purchased with other funds or for food that was donated are not eligible.

For example, if you buy carrots from a local farmer, paying to have those carrots coined, blanched, and frozen at a local commercial kitchen would be an eligible food expense. If the carrots were donated to your organization, the cost for processing would not be eligible.

If you are not certain if a cost is eligible as a food expense, you should check with us first.

Costs related directly to food storage of food purchases with grant funds are eligible administrative costs. If a fridge is necessary to store refrigerated items for your grant project you could buy it with the administrative portion of your project budget (limited to 15% of total project costs).

If you are not certain if a cost is eligible, you should check with us before buying.

Farmer stipends may be eligible as part of the 15% allowable administrative portion of your budget. The eligibility of the stipends depends on the reason you are providing the stipends. Stipends to farms to participate in training, engage in technical assistance, conduct outreach, advise on project implementation, or participate in evaluation may be eligible.

Stipends for farmers to participate in “pay-what-you-can” farmers market would not be eligible, because individuals cannot have conditions placed on them to receive the food (e.g., no mandated training, classes, or services), and any real or perceived obstacles to receiving food at distributions should be avoided (e.g., “pay what you can” or “suggested donation” models).

If you are not certain if a cost is eligible, you should check with us before paying.

No, the intent of the Farm to Food Security grant program is to buy foods grown and raised in Minnesota to distribute to individuals and families in need. Donor breastmilk would not be an eligible expense since it is being donated and is not an agricultural product.

Yes, administrative costs may not exceed 15% of the total costs for your project. You can determine how you wish to split administrative expenses between partners in a joint application.

No, partners or contractors on a project may not charge an indirect rate. Partners and contractors can be paid for direct administrative expenses related to food storage, food transportation, and supporting expenses allocable to the project. When requesting reimbursement, the lead organization will generally need to submit the same cost documentation for administrative costs at partner organizations as they would submit from their own organization.

Administrative costs may not exceed 15% of total project costs across all organizations that are part of your joint application.

This section of the RFP is referencing donations and in-kind contributions an organization would make using their grant or matching funds. For example, the cost for a grantee to make a financial contribution to an annual giving campaign at their local food shelf would not be eligible for reimbursement. Likewise, the in-kind rental value of a food shelf’s meeting room which they donate to be used for a farmer meeting for the project could not be counted as part of their matching contribution.

The costs to purchase and pay for food and distribute it through a food shelf are considered project costs and are eligible costs for the Farm to Food Security grant program.

Yes, administrative costs may not exceed 15% of the total costs for your project, including your matching contribution.

For example, a grantee that requests the maximum award amount of $100,000 will have a total project cost of $150,000 ($100,000 grant funds + $50,000 cash match). This means they can include up to $22,500 in administrative costs in their budget. Out of that total of $22,500, $15,000 can be reimbursed by the grant funds (15% of the $100,000 in grant funds) and $7,500 must be paid for with cash match (15% of their $50,000 in cash match).

Costs that are eligible for the grant are also eligible as match. Personnel costs (salary, wages, and fringe benefits) are eligible costs that may be part of the allowable 15% administrative expenses. However, in-kind match is not eligible. Personnel expenses are only eligible for paid staff (i.e., volunteer time donated in-kind is not eligible).

You will need to provide the same cost documentation for all project costs (those being reimbursed by grant funds and your matching contribution). Typically, reimbursement requests for personnel and fringe costs will need to include two types of cost documentation for each expense: proof of purchase (e.g., payroll reports and timesheets) and proof of payment (e.g., cleared pay checks or paystubs).

You must be able to clearly delineate in the proof of purchase the time spent working on the grant. This usually means your staff must keep a log of the time spent working on your project.

Yes, personnel costs from partnering organizations are an eligible cost that may be part of your project’s 15% administrative expenses. Only costs that are eligible for the grant are eligible as match.

You should be aware that collaborative projects with partners that will receive a portion of the grant funds typically require additional documentation for reimbursement. For example, a partner organization would pay their staff to distribute food and then invoice the lead organization for those costs as part of the grant project. The lead organization would then need to pay the invoice to the partner organization before requesting reimbursement. When requesting reimbursement, the lead organization needs to submit the original proofs of purchase and payment from the partner organization to their staff (e.g., timesheets, payroll reports, paychecks), and the secondary level of proofs of purchase and payment that show the lead organization has paid the partner organization for these costs.

No, in your budget you will not designate which costs are used as match and which costs are used as grant expenses.

If you apply for and receive an award of $50,000 or more, once you have spent the first $50,000 on your project, we will begin reimbursing you for 50% of the remaining project costs (food and administrative).

We do not provide applicants with a Word version of the RFP or application. However, you can download the list of application questions from the online application system. Once you are logged in, select “Apply” on the top bar and navigate to the FY26-27 Farm to Food Security Grant. Select “Preview” to access and download a list of application questions that can be copy and pasted into a document.

You should include information about any grant you have received from the State of Minnesota in the past five years.

You are only required to submit a letter of commitment if your project involves formal collaborators. Eligible applicants may collaborate with other organizations and entities, but it’s not required.

Examples of formal collaboration include being paid grant funds, distributing food purchased with the grant, or having a contractual relationship with the lead grantee organization. You may also optionally provide letters of support from collaborators that are not formally involved in your project to demonstrate that you have support for the application within your community.

No, farms/food producers who you plan to buy food from are not considered formal collaborators. You do not need to submit a letter of commitment from them unless they also will be involved in helping you carry out the work of the grant project (e.g., hosting food distributions on their farm, providing food transportation to the lead applicant for food distributions). Letters of commitment should describe the role the collaborator will play in the project and indicate a willingness to take on that role.

However, you must include at least one letter of support from a farmer/food producer who you plan to buy food from. We encourage you to seek letters from each Minnesota producer you plan to source from during your project. Letters of support to show you have support from farmers as part of your project and should describe how the farmer will benefit from the grant.

At this time, funds have been appropriated in Fiscal Years (FY) 2026 and 2027 for the Farm to Food Security Grant program. We expect that the program will be continued in future years, but funding for both FY26 and FY27 will be awarded through the current funding round, which means another application period likely will not be opened until FY28.

Yes, if you have received more grants than can be reasonably listed within the character limit for this question you may include an attachment in another section of the application. Please keep your descriptions of prior grants very brief.

The RFP states that, “The grantee will provide voter registration services for its employees and for the public served by the grantee (MINN. STAT. 201.162).” The referenced statute requires that nonprofits that contract with state agencies to carry out obligations of the state agency must provide voter registration services for employees and the public.

Examples of nonpartisan voter registration assistance could include routinely asking members of the public served by the grantee whether they would like to register to vote or update a voter registration and, if requested, assisting them in preparing the registration forms. For example, a local food shelf distributing food as part of this grant program could hang a poster at their site reminding people to register to vote, and if requested by a client, print out a voter registration form for them.

Churches and religious organizations, like all other grantees, will receive an IRS Form 1099 from the State of Minnesota for income tax purposes. The tax-exempt status and tax filing requirements for churches and religious organizations vary, so each grantee will need to work with their tax advisor to determine based on their own status if the grant income could trigger any additional tax filing requirements.

The full cost for local food can be included in your project budget. You will be reimbursed for 100% of project costs, including food purchases, up to $50,000; after which point, you will be reimbursed for 50% of project costs.

Probably not, because expenses that have been or will be reimbursed under any federal, state, or local government funding or other grants (e.g., no “double dipping”) are not eligible. If the other grant program only covers the costs to prepare meals, such as labor, kitchen space, or packaging, then you could request reimbursement for the local food ingredients going into meals. If the other grant program reimburses you for the cost of ingredients or pays you a flat rate per meal, you could not request reimbursement for the local food ingredients that will go into the meals for that program.

You will not need to track each meal individually, but you will need to be able to track that the local food ingredients you purchase with grant funds were incorporated into meals that you then distributed in Minnesota communities to individuals experiencing food insecurity. We will not collect individual client data for individuals receiving food as part of reporting. All food distributions must take place in Minnesota, and we may ask you to report on the communities/locations where distributions of local food or meals made with local food ingredients took place.

No, if eligible organizations are submitting a joint application, they must determine which organization or entity will have the grant contract agreement with the MDA and will work directly with the MDA to request reimbursement and meet grant reporting requirements. This entity will receive payments for the grant from the MDA and receive an IRS Form 1099 from the State of Minnesota for income tax purposes. We can only issue payments to the organization or entity that has the grant contract agreement.

If you are the lead applicant working with partner organizations, your organization will need to have sufficient cash upfront to be able to pay partners for their work/costs for the project and provide proof of this payment to the partner organization before requesting reimbursement from the MDA. You will also need to provide the original proofs of purchase and payment for the costs of any partner organizations (e.g., invoices from farmers for food purchases made by the partner organization and a cleared check showing the partner organization paid the farmer).

Grantees will be allowed to request reimbursement as needed. We encourage grantees to be reasonable in their approach to requesting reimbursement. We prefer that you wait until you have a few expenses to request reimbursement for, instead of submitting separate reimbursement requests for each individual cost you have as part of the grant. We also discourage you from waiting until the end of the grant period to request reimbursement for all costs.

Once we receive all required cost documentation (proofs of purchase and payment) and have confirmed that a grantee is up to date on reporting and in compliance with other grant requirements, payment is issued by the State within 30 days. However, if you let us know that your cash flow is tight, we can often issue payments much faster.

Yes, you can expect that many of the same reporting requirements from the federal LFPA grant program will apply. However, this is a new program, and we’re still developing the reporting requirements and templates. The requirements to provide proof of purchase and proof of payment for all costs when requesting reimbursement will be the same.

Because this is a state-funded program, we may not need to collect the same information as the federally funded program. However, we will still need to gather enough data to monitor projects, document program impact, and ensure good use of tax-payer dollars. If you participated in the federal LFPA program and have suggestions related to reporting, please reach out! We appreciate feedback from grantees.

This is a new program, and we’re still developing the reporting requirements and templates. It’s allowable to distribute the foods you bought with grant funds along with other foods not purchased with grant funds. However, you will need to be able to track that the local food you purchase with grant funds are distributed in Minnesota communities to individuals experiencing food insecurity as part of your project. All food distributions must take place in Minnesota, and we will ask you to report on the communities/locations where distributions of local food took place.

This is a new program, and we’re still developing the reporting requirements and templates. However, at this time we don’t anticipate any reporting requirements that would require that distribution of perishable foods specifically be tracked separately from nonperishables. There likely will be requirements that all food purchased with grant funds be distributed prior to requesting final reimbursement (i.e., storage of nonperishables beyond the end of the grant project would not be reimbursable).