The Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program (MAWQCP) has Climate Pollution Reduction Grant funding to support the use of nitrogen enhanced efficiency fertilizers on farms in Minnesota to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and promote water quality. For the purposes of these funding opportunities, “nitrogen enhanced efficiency fertilizers” (N EEFs) refers to the nitrification inhibitors and urease inhibitors that are on MDA's list of acceptable nitrogen inhibitor products, as well as polymer urea. The list is located under Forms + Resources.
MAWQCP will provide financial support for the use of N EEFs through two funding pathways: 1) contracts with agricultural co-ops that will directly provide farmers a discount on the costs of N EEF products, and 2) individual grants with farmers who are MN Agricultural Water Quality Certified or are actively working towards Certification. Farms/farmers are NOT eligible to receive funding for N EEF use through both funding paths in the same year.
MAWQCP Nitrogen Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers Discount Program (for Agricultural Retailers)
MAWQCP is soliciting proposals from agricultural retailers interested in contracting with MAWQCP to provide farmers a price discount on N EEFs that are applied on agricultural lands in Minnesota in 2026. MAWQCP is offering up to $10/acre for the documented sale/application of eligible N EEFs, not to exceed 75% of product cost.
Project proposals that promote the use of N EEF products in ways that align with best management practices and with other State priorities will be competitively prioritized for contract selection. Payments will be dispersed according to satisfactory documentation of the application of a N EFF product that had been sold at a discount by the contracted organization(s). Payments will be made on a per-acre basis.
Quick Facts:
Open to qualified retailers of nitrogen enhanced efficiency fertilizers in Minnesota.
$1.5 million available through this opportunity in 2026. There will likely be similar opportunities in 2027 and 2028.
Contract awards can range from $25,000 to $400,000.
Nitrification inhibitors and polymer-coated urea qualify for up to $10/acre.
Urease inhibitors qualify for up to $8/acre.
Payment will not exceed 75% of actual product costs.
At least 80% of the value of all per-acre payments distributed to contracted ag retailers through this program must be directly given to the farmer(s) as a discount on the purchased N EEF product(s).
To be eligible for discounts, farmers must be 1) certified through MAWQCP, 2) actively working towards MAWQCP Certification, or 3) be willing to be contacted by MAWQCP staff to receive further information about the program.
Total payments tied to the discounted sale of N EEF products to an individual farm/farmer will not exceed $10,000.
Responses should be emailed to Ellen Friedrich (ellen.friedrich@state.mn.us) and are due by 11:59pm on March 30, 2026.
MAWQCP Financial Assistance Grants (Individual Farmers)
Individual financial assistance grants to support the use of N EEFs will be available to farms that are certified or actively working towards MAWQCP certification directly through MAWQCP Financial Assistance grants. Farmers should contact their MAWQCP Certifier or other MAWQCP staff if they are interested in learning more.
Quick Facts:
Nitrification inhibitors and polymer-coated urea qualify for up to $10/acre.
Urease inhibitors qualify for up to $8/acre.
Payment will not exceed 75% of actual product costs.
Total payments for an individual farm/farmer will not exceed $5,000.
We anticipate that this funding will be available starting in spring 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions for N EEF Discount Program (for Ag Retailers)
Polymer coated urea and the nitrogen inhibitor products listed as acceptable or conditionally acceptable on the MDA list of nitrogen inhibitors are the only products eligible for discounting through this opportunity. Some of the eligible products are suitable for use with manure applications.
Farmers using eligible products with manure applications may be eligible to receive discounts on those products through the organizations receiving funding this program. Your group is welcome to encourage any ag retailers you may work with to submit a proposal through this opportunity. We will publish a list of the organizations which receive funding through this opportunity.
This RFP opportunity is open to ag retailers (those who are selling the N EEF products). The organizations with proposals selected for funding will offer discounted N EEF products to farmers in their service area. If you are interested in getting a discount on your N EEF product, you should get in contact with your local ag co-op (or whoever you work with to purchase fertilizer products). Please share the opportunity with them, let them know that you are interested, and encourage them to investigate whether this opportunity could be a good fit for their organization!
Through a separate opportunity (not tied to this RFP), we anticipate that the MDA’s Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program (MAWQCP) will also provide some individual grants to farmers to support the use of N EEFs. However, this will be a smaller amount of money than what will be distributed through the RFP opportunity. Payment limitations will be similar to those laid out in the RFP, but total grant amounts will not exceed $5,000. This grant opportunity will be available to farmers which are MN Ag Water Quality Certified. It may also be available to farmers which are actively working towards Certification. We will share updates about this potential opportunity when details are finalized. To access opportunities like this in the future, farmers who are not already working with MAWQCP are encouraged to apply.
Yes, choose formats which work well for you and that can be easily opened by others! Some combination of Word, Excel, and PDF file formats will probably make sense. Copying over and then answering questions from the RFP in a Word document or other word processing program works great. You are welcome to submit your proposal content answers and Attachments A-C in word processing or pdf formats. Attachment D: Cost Detail should be kept in an Excel or another equivalent spreadsheet format. Try to use clear file naming conventions. Responses should be emailed to ellen.friedrich@state.mn.us. Make sure that you include all required materials.
Either approach is acceptable. You are encouraged to include a clarifying note or comment about which approach you used and how you are framing the pricing of this product. This may include an outline of your assumptions about the total N application rate and the percentage of the N in the fertilizer blend coming from the polymer coated urea. Remember to be eligible through this program, polymer coated urea must account for at least 30% of the N in the fertilizer blend.
Growers do not necessarily need to receive a cash payment; they just need to receive a discount or refund directly tied to the purchase of the product. For example, a farmer might have paid $2/acre for a product rather than $10/acre. How exactly organizations want to handle billing/discounting with a customer is up to them, but the big thing to keep in mind is that payments will be dispersed only according to satisfactory documentation of the completed sale and application of N EEF products in scenarios which meet all program eligibility requirements. So, the farmer will need to have already received the discount, and the product will need to have been already applied before MDA would issue any payments.
As a risk mitigation measure, in scenarios where the retailer is not applying the product, it might make sense for them to only issue the ‘discount’ after the farmer can attest to number of acres where of the discounted product in conditions which met all eligibility requirements (e.g., at appropriate rates and on land in MN).
Base your product price info off a typical volume applied per acre. So maybe that is the appropriate product volume when applying the product with 150 lbs of pre-plant N, maybe it’s based off applying it with 60 lbs of in-season N. You are welcome to include a clarifying note or comment about the scenario assumptions you used. You are also welcome to include note of another typical price scenario if you’d like. We know that there will be variation in the volume of a product applied depending on the application scenario, so just try to choose a reasonably representative scenario for the product in the cost detail spreadsheet.
If your response is selected, you are not necessarily required to match the exact product price & discount value you included in your proposal. But make sure you are happy with your proposed ratio of funds which is being passed on to farmers versus going to overhead (being kept by your organization to support your project costs), as the overall payment to your overhead costs will not exceed the ratio you proposed. For example, if you propose that farmers will receive 90% of the overall value of funds, farmers will need to receive at least 90% of the funds – we would cap your payments so that overhead payments would not exceed 10% of your overall payment.
Responders do not have to be cooperatives to be eligible, but they do need to be agricultural retailers. Not being a co-op does not exclude you from eligibility.
You’re welcome to submit an umbrella application from your organization representing multiple retail locations, or to have individual retail locations submit application. Just be sure to clearly specify the retail location(s) and service area(s) the application is representing. You can decide whether lumping or splitting makes sense to you. Keep in mind that the potential award cap for a single organization is $400,000. You wouldn’t be able to have retail locations receiving a total award value greater than $400,000. But there, hypothetically, could be two $200,000 awards; or a $300,000 award and a $100,000 award.
A GIS layer showing the location of LIDAC areas can be found on the MDA LiDAC Communities MN website.
