WARREN — The latest round of Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Local Agriculture and Seafood Act grant funding is available to small operators in the business of producing and selling its nearby grown product.

Known more familiarly by the acronym LASA (lah-sa), some $500,000 is on offer this cycle aimed at assisting proprietors with projects that support growth and development of their businesses as well as market their wears.

Since coming to pass 12 years ago, LASA has provided close to $3 million through individual grants in the amount of up to $20,000. The current grant application period closes on November 30.

RIDEM notes applicants must be based in Rhode Island and only small and/or beginning farmers, or producer groups of small or beginning farmers, to be eligible to apply for capital grants. Also, aquaculture operators are considered farmers in the LASA program.

At least two entrepreneurs in town — the respective owners of Long Lane Farm and Sowams Cider Works — are fully aware of the benefits the LASA program provides and both willingly spread its gospel.

Long Lane Farm

Camille Abdel-Nabi and her wife, Devin, began operating at Long Lane Farm with then-partner Bob Paine back in the fall of 2020. They had been cultivating together since 2013 on a rental property in Exeter under the monicker "Little River Farm."

The trio continued their partnership, attempting to run both operations, but found being on opposite sides of the state wasn't the wisest of endeavors.

The group split in 2022 with the Abdel-Nabis taking control of the Long Lane land, which, with its traditional two-story house and road-side stand at the ready, Camille called her and Devin's "dream property."

On a recent vibrant fall afternoon, Camille was busy pulling all of the farm's summer plants, like peppers, eggplant and tomatoes, from their beds while readying them to be replaced by the more sustainable crops of winter such as spinach, lettuce and carrots. Meanwhile, a contractor was working on the project made feasible by last year's LASA seed funding.

Needing an influx of capital to get the business going and make Long Lane a modern, viable small farming vehicle, the Abdel-Nabis applied for and were initially granted LASA funding two years ago, using some of the money to build a new greenhouse on the grounds. The second, received in the 2023 cycle and under construction, allowed the Abdel-Nabis to upgrade the farm's washing and packing capabilities as well as its walk-in cooler refrigerator.

"The first LASA grant was just to get the basic supplies we needed to start this up again," Camille explained. "The one thing small farmers spend a lot of time doing is washing and packing the vegetables, and the other thing you have to do is keep them cool. We've kind of been doing things make-shift. But now with the upgrades, it really helps."

Long Lane has received nearly $35,000 total in LASA grants, and as Camille described, "It may not seem like a lot, but to a farm, it's a big amount of money. It was huge for us, especially with the property being as it was. It was pretty raw."

Well past being a true working farm, corn was the last product of any monetary value grown on the grounds, the Abdel-Nabis needed to replace fencing, update its greenhouses, build all new beds, dig new electrical and water lines, pretty much renovate the entire farm portion of the property.

"It was basically starting the farm back all over again, so it was important to have those funds available," said Camille, whose operation sells its product from the farmstand on Long Lane as well as through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm share and to some of the restaurants in Warren and Providence.

With two cycles of grants in tow and still needing to complete existing efforts, the Abdel-Nabis are content to let others have access to the LASA program this time around.

"So we kind of feel like let's finish up the projects we already have, but I'll for sure be applying again," Camille Abdel-Nabi said. "It's a really great grant. I know so many farms that have benefited. It's not like it's an insane amount of money, but it helps. Sometimes you're just thinking about doing something, and you're like I just need another $5,000 and I could do this. And these grants allow you to do it. It's pretty great."

Sowams Cider Works

One conversation with Spencer Morris lets the listener know devoted he is to his craft, Sowams Cider Works, which grows and grinds its own product at a small orchard on the same Long Lane and at a storefront on Child Street.

Morris, who's received about $15,000 via two LASA grants, planted his first apple trees locally in 2013 with the purpose of opening his cidery five years later, which he accomplished and continues to this day.

Morris came to Warren by way of Providence, then the Hudson Valley in New York where his family first endeavored into the orchard game. "It's kind of in the blood a little," Morris said recently while perusing his trees during one of his daily picks.

"But it also just started as an experiment to see if I could make money growing apples," he continued, jokingly adding, "I was always told if you wanted to make a fortune in the apple business, you should start off with a fortune."

Morris's business, which also includes a small custom bar tap handle manufacturing operation for restaurants and beverage companies, certainly hasn't made him a millionaire, but it is turning a modest profit.

"It's tough," Morris admitted. "Small farming in general has only been possible now in say the last 10 years by direct to retail sales and through farmers markets now that didn't exist when I was a kid. And that's enough, barely, to support a family now. I'm still trying to prove that out. In the meantime we've figured out how to make a pretty good product, figured out how to grow the fruit to make the product."

Morris takes pains to explain his nectar is not the sweet, almost syrupy drink most associate with the fall and Thanksgiving. His "cider" is more akin to wine, rather than fruit juice. "I do try to make that distinction so that cider has its place next to grape wine," he said.

As Morris tells it, cider in any other part of the world is "hard" cider or with alcohol content. In the Colonial Era through the 1800s and even into the early part of the 20th century Morris reminds in the United States "cider was the drink of our nation. We were a nation of cider drinkers because we were a farm-based economy."

Morris has 1,000 trees over his two-acre parcel on Long Lane (He's also starting a new orchard in Bristol), where he grows the "uncommon" varieties of apples he uses to make his cider. It's there where he uses one of his purchases with LASA funding, a flail brush mower.

"You can't really tackle that with a lawn mower," Morris said, pointing to the thicket he allows to grow around his trees for fertilization and environmental reasons. "This type of mower chops up all of the brush, turns them into finer mass that rots in quicker. It basically increases the humus level in soil and more efficiently mows."

The other LASA grant Morris received went to the purchase of equipment at his Child Street cidery, which he said "was absolutely critical...It enabled me to significantly increase production at lower labor costs." The grant allowed for the retrofitting of an old machinist press into one able to squeeze juice from his apples.

Morris appreciates the generosity of RIDEM through the LASA program to help support really small scale, small farming operations like his and that of the Abdel-Nabis, He admits is a "tough business, so any help you can get goes right back into the production and the ability to expand at all or increase the utility of what you already have. It benefits me directly because it allows me to produce more efficiently."

He added, "I can't applaud the state more to recognize the value of this program. I think they've analyzed the metrics and I think they've seen the same thing. It's limited to $20,000, but that's meaningful to a small business person. It's great."

For more information on the LASA Grant program visit RIDEM’s website www.dem.ri.gov.

For more information on the LASA Grant program visit RIDEM’s website www.dem.ri.gov.