Curated News
By: NewsRamp Editorial Staff
December 18, 2025
Dairy Alliance & Lasso Launch Free Grant Program for Southeast Farmers
TLDR
- The Dairy Alliance's pilot program with Lasso offers dairy farmers a strategic advantage by providing free grant consulting to secure funding for upgrades, boosting operational efficiency and competitiveness.
- The program works by having Lasso identify relevant grant opportunities, prepare applications, and manage post-award requirements for eligible dairy farm projects, with a reported 90% success rate.
- This initiative helps sustain family dairy businesses by reducing administrative burdens, allowing farmers to invest in their operations for future generations and strengthen local communities.
- A nonprofit and grant provider team up to offer free end-to-end support, helping dairy farmers navigate complex funding processes to turn project ideas into reality.
Impact - Why it Matters
This initiative directly addresses a critical pain point for small and family-owned dairy farms: access to capital for necessary improvements. Many farmers lack the time, expertise, or resources to navigate complex grant applications, leaving potentially millions in available funding untapped. By providing free professional support, this program enables farmers to invest in equipment upgrades, energy efficiency projects, and infrastructure improvements that can increase profitability, sustainability, and operational resilience. For consumers, this means stronger local food systems, more sustainable farming practices, and continued availability of dairy products from family farms. The agricultural sector's economic health depends on such innovative support systems that help farmers modernize without bearing prohibitive administrative burdens.
Summary
The Dairy Alliance, a nonprofit organization funded by dairy farm families across eight Southeastern states, has launched an innovative pilot program in partnership with grant services provider Lasso to help dairy farmers secure public funding for on-farm improvements. This initiative offers free, comprehensive grant consulting and grant-writing support to eligible farms, addressing the significant time burden and complexity that often discourages farmers from pursuing available funding opportunities. By leveraging Lasso's expertise, which boasts a 90 percent success rate and has secured over 70 grants worth millions of dollars, the program aims to connect farmers with federal, state, regional, and local programs like the Value-Added Producer Grant and the Southeast Dairy Business Innovation Initiative.
Key players driving this initiative include Farrah Newberry, CEO of The Dairy Alliance, who emphasized that grant funding often feels inaccessible to farmers already overwhelmed with daily operations, and Nicole Rojas, co-founder of Lasso, who highlighted how the partnership removes barriers by managing the entire grant process from identification to post-award requirements. The program specifically targets farmers considering equipment upgrades, infrastructure improvements, or energy efficiency projects, providing end-to-end support at no cost to help them invest in their family businesses for future generations. Interested farmers with identified projects can contact the Lasso team or Mekenzie Panhans to determine eligibility and potentially participate in case studies showcasing the benefits of grant funding.
This collaboration represents a strategic effort to strengthen the dairy industry in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia by making critical funding more accessible. Farmers can learn more about this opportunity by visiting The Dairy Alliance website or following them on social media platforms, while the program's success could serve as a model for other agricultural sectors facing similar challenges in securing investment capital for sustainable operations.
Source Statement
This curated news summary relied on content disributed by 24-7 Press Release. Read the original source here, Dairy Alliance & Lasso Launch Free Grant Program for Southeast Farmers
