Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding announced Pennsylvania has doubled the amount available to Pennsylvania farmers to support strategic business planning through Pennsylvania Farm Vitality Grants. The grants reimburse farmers for 75% of the costs of business planning to expand, diversify, or transition farm ownership. The amount available per applicant increased from $7,500 to $15,000 on May 17.
“Farm Vitality Grants are helping farmers across Pennsylvania get the market analysis, financial planning, risk management, and other expertise they need to realize their vision for their farm’s future, whether that’s expanding their operations or protecting their family’s farming legacy,” Secretary Redding said.
Farm Vitality Grants, created under the Pennsylvania Farm Bill in 2019, have supported $2.8 million in project planning, and financial and technical expertise to support growth opportunities for 401 Pennsylvania farms. Sixty percent of the grants have helped families planning to transition ownership of their farm to keep it in the family or pass it to new owners who will carry on their farming legacy. This includes 148 owners of preserved farms who are protecting their prime farmland from future residential or commercial development.
Sec. Redding made the announcement at Jersey Acres Farms in Pine Grove, one of 6,530 preserved farms across Pennsylvania that will stay farms forever as part of the nation’s leading Farmland Preservation program. The Schuylkill County family farm received a Farm Vitality Grant of $1,312 in 2024 to help the family pass the farm down within the Heffner family. In February 2025, the family won a $100,000 grant to put in robotic milkers through the Shapiro Administration’s first-of its-kind Agricultural Innovation Grant Program to make its 230-cow operation more efficient.
Fourth-graders from Blue Mountain Elementary West in Friedensburg accompanied Sec. Redding on a tour of Jersey Acres’ dairy. The Heffner family has made the farm a tourism and educational destination, where young people can learn first-hand how a modern dairy operates and how cutting-edge technology makes the dairy products they enjoy every day safe and healthy.
Farm Vitality Planning Grants can be combined with other Pennsylvania Farm Bill grants, low-interest loans, and tax incentives to help plan and finance farm transitions, including:
- Beginning Farmer Tax Credit Program, which provides tax credits as an incentive to those who sell or rent agricultural assets to beginning farmers. Seventy-three farm owners have received Beginning Farmer Tax Credits, saving them collectively $1.3 million on their taxes, and helping them pass the torch to the next generation to take up farming.
- Beginning Farmer Realty Transfer Tax Exemptions through which 73 beginning farmers purchasing preserved farms have been given tax exemptions.
- Next Generation Farmer Loan Program, which uses federal tax-exempt financing to reduce a farmer’s interest rate for capital purchases, to help young families fund farm expansions and purchases.Thirty farmers qualified for more than $15.4 million in low-interest, tax-exempt loans in 2023.
To inform development of more policy and initiatives that feed the success of the next generation of farmers, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is partnering with Penn State Extension and PA Farm Link on the firstFarm Progression Surveyin 20 years. Data gathered from the brief survey will help Pennsylvania strengthen rural communities and support the future of farming in the region. Responses are confidential and the survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.
