Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation announced the launch of the Grow a Farmer Fund campaign at the Slow Money Minnesota meeting on May 3 in St. Paul.

The fund is organized in partnership with Slow Money Minnesota and other collaborators through the FEAST Local Foods Network, including Renewing the Countryside. It is intended to provide lower-interest loans to farmers, initially in SMIF’s 20-county region of south central and southeastern Minnesota.

“It’s not that there’s not money out there for small farmers and food enterprises, it’s just that it doesn’t flow as easily as it should,” said Renewing the Countryside Executive Director Jan Joannides. “This fund will enable ordinary people to support southern Minnesota’s local foods economy, thereby increasing both monetary capital and social capital for small-scale sustainable farmers.”

The goal of the Grow a Farmer Fund is to raise $100,000 by Sept. 1.

According to a press release, the funds will support a revolving loan fund that makes lower-interest loans to small-scale farmers.

SMIF provided the initial $25,000 as a matching grant to help launch the fund. An additional $7,000 was raised at the unveiling of the fund on May 3, where investors, food entrepreneurs, and those interested in supporting a stronger local economy in Minnesota gathered to hear from Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money.

“This fund is just one more way we’re helping to support not just local foods in our region, but a broader local economy,” said Pam Bishop, SMIF’s vice president of economic development. “People want a way to invest in the place they live. For 30 years, the Foundation has been focused on empowering people to find their own solutions to ever evolving challenges. The Grow a Farmer Fund is just one more way to do that.”

“We see the Grow a Farmer fund as a natural fit to the Foundation’s mission of promoting regional economic opportunities and collaborations,” said SMIF President and CEO Tim Penny.

The Grow a Farmer fund was inspired by the principles of Slow Money, which originated out of the slow food movement. Slow Money’s mission is to catalyze the flow of capital to local food systems, connect investors to the places where they live and promote new principles of fiduciary responsibility that “bring money back down to earth.”

“We as a society and as an economy need to start optimizing for a large number of small things, not just relying on a small number of large things,” said Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money Alliance.