Every year the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture and Research and Education (SARE) offer grants capping at $15,000 to commercial farmers who are looking to explore and innovate. Last years winners included projects so wonderfully creative that they bordered on zany-- such as using mustard cover crops to biofumigate strawberries, pasturing rabbits for profit, and (my favorite) designing a low-impact amphibious vehicle for oyster harvesting.
This year's deadline is in less than two weeks-- on midnight Nov. 12! If you have an idea that you'd like to try out, you can download the application materials here, and there is a wealth of knowledge to gleaned from the grant page on SARE's website.