Texas NRCS Urban Conservation Project | USDA NRCS TX UCP 18 01

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA NRCS TX UCP 18 01

The Texas NRCS Urban Conservation Project is a competitive grant opportunity run by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Texas State Office. It is designed to build partnerships with organizations that share NRCS goals around conservation, community resilience, and practical urban agriculture. The program supports projects located in Texas and focuses on helping local groups turn urban spaces into productive, educational, and ecologically supportive garden sites. The bigger idea is that community and school gardens can act as a simple but powerful starting point for locally led solutions, bringing people together while also improving access to healthy food and supporting conservation outcomes in cities and towns.

Funding for this opportunity was expected to total about $150,000 for federal fiscal year 2018, with an estimated eight awards. Individual awards were capped at $13,500, and projects were intended to run for one year. NRCS framed this as both financial and technical assistance, meaning selected applicants could receive funding as well as NRCS support and expertise to help implement conservation minded urban agriculture practices.

Eligible applicants included 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations (excluding higher education institutions), independent school districts, public and state controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, and federally recognized Native American tribal governments. All proposed work needed to take place in Texas, and proposals were accepted and evaluated competitively under the terms of the announcement (Funding Opportunity Number: USDA NRCS TX UCP 18 01). The original closing date listed for applications was December 15, 2017.

Program activities centered on establishing community and school gardens for food production, creating habitat that attracts and sustains monarch butterflies and other pollinators, and installing seasonal high tunnels to extend the growing season for fruits and vegetables. The emphasis on pollinators reflects a conservation objective as well as a practical production benefit, since pollinator friendly plantings can improve garden yields while also supporting insect populations that have been under pressure in Texas and beyond. The high tunnel component is aimed at increasing reliability and seasonal availability of produce by protecting crops and lengthening the period when communities can grow and harvest locally.

NRCS highlighted several core conservation objectives that proposals were expected to advance. These included providing hands-on learning experiences in natural resource conservation for urban communities, addressing food deserts, transforming urban properties into productive vegetable growing sites, improving access to healthy and affordable food locally, and leveraging non-federal resources to multiply impact. In practice, that last point signals that NRCS values partnerships that bring matching support, in-kind contributions, volunteers, local sponsorships, or other funding sources to strengthen long-term outcomes beyond the one-year grant period.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as a small-grant, high-impact community partnership program: it targets urban and peri-urban settings where gardens can simultaneously serve as food access projects, outdoor classrooms, and conservation demonstration sites. The projects NRCS is trying to encourage are the kind that show visible community benefits quickly while also building longer-term local capacity for conservation minded land stewardship in urban environments.

• The Natural Resources Conservation Service in the agriculture, environment, food and nutrition, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Texas NRCS Urban Conservation Project" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.902.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-10-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-12-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $13,500.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for USDA NRCS TX UCP 18 01

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