Marin County Parks is signaling its support for sustainable agriculture and food systems with its development of the new Measure A Community Food and Agriculture Grant Program. The program, which will provide grants to agricultural organizations ranging from $5,000 to $100,000, will be informed by what Parks director Max Korten called a “massive outreach” initiative. So far, Mr. Korten said, community members have expressed interest in community gardens, carbon farming, access to agricultural land for underserved communities and greater recreational access. Stakeholders in the program have emphasized the importance of funding diverse projects in both urban and rural areas, promoting equity and supporting projects that may not fit existing funding sources. “We’ve heard directly from West Marin [about] interest in supporting farm workers so that they can transition from being production-oriented to establishing community gardens,” said Sonya Hammons, the program coordinator. “There’s been interest in the development of food co-ops and we’re working closely with Health and Human Services [to assess food needs].” The program is the result of last year’s reorganization of the quarter-cent sales tax, which pays for the acquisition and maintenance of county parks, open space preserves and farmland. In the previous iteration, 95 percent of the sustainable agriculture fund—which is 30 percent of Measure A—went to agricultural conservation, mostly to the Marin Agricultural Land Trust for purchasing easements, and 5 percent went to the Marin Resource Conservation District for stewardship and restoration projects. When Measure A was renewed in June 2022, just 50 percent of the sustainable agriculture fund was set aside for agricultural easements, while 20 percent was reserved for the R.C.D. and 30 percent for the Community Food and Agriculture Grant Program. An outreach initiative to inform the new program was conducted in 2021, yielding thousands of survey responses and comments from people expressing a broad range of priorities for the grants. “Because the range of topics that this program encompasses adds quite a few new topics that were not previously in Measure A, we’ve been collaborating with partners from the perspective of environmental restoration, food and health, and agriculture. We now have a solid set of guidelines that govern the program,” Mr. Korten said. To be eligible for the grants, applicants must be a nonprofit, city, county, school district, federally recognized Native American tribe or fiscal sponsor of one of those. Applicants will be selected based on relevance to Measure A and benefits to priority communities, among other criteria. Mr. Korten said he anticipates the tax will raise $16 million for 2023, including $800,000 for the grant program. The application period will open in the fall, and funds will be awarded in May. A survey to gather input from potential applicants is available at bit.ly/AgGrantSurvey2023.