Selling hay to the government

Government agencies buy a lot of hay, for wildlife refuges feeding elk and bison, military bases, parks, and prisons. The websites are confusing, so here is the plain-English version of how it works and how to get in.

The short version

Federal agencies post what they want to buy on one website, SAM.gov. To bid, you register your farm there once (it is free), then watch for hay solicitations and submit a quote. States run their own separate websites. That is the whole game, the rest is detail.

Step 1: Register your farm on SAM.gov (free, do this first)

You cannot win a federal contract without an active registration in SAM.gov. Go to sam.gov, create a free account, and register your farm as an entity. You will get a UEI (Unique Entity ID), a free ID number that identifies your business to the government. Registration can take a few days to validate, so start before you find a bid you want, not after.

Important: registering on SAM.gov is always 100% free. If a website or company asks you to pay a fee to register or get your UEI, it is not the real one, back out. The only official site is sam.gov.

Step 2: Know your hay code

The government classifies what you sell with a NAICS code. For selling hay, that code is 111940 (Hay Farming). You will list it during registration, and it is what agencies use to find hay growers. If you also sell other ag products, you can list more than one code.

Step 3: Watch for hay bids

Federal agencies must post any contract over $25,000 on SAM.gov. That is where the elk-hay, refuge-hay, and base-hay solicitations show up. Two ways to catch them:

• Let My Hay Barn watch for you. Our radar pulls federal hay and alfalfa solicitations from SAM.gov automatically and shows them in your region, with the deadline and a direct link. That is the easy way.
• Search SAM.gov yourself. On sam.gov, open Contract Opportunities and search "hay" or "alfalfa," or filter by NAICS 111940. Save the search and check it every few days. Sort by most recent.

Step 4: Read the notice, then bid

When you open a hay solicitation, look for: what they want (tonnage, quality, bale type, delivery), the response deadline (when your quote is due), and the point of contact (the contracting officer, you can email them questions). Then submit your quote the way the notice tells you to, usually by email or through SAM.gov by the deadline. Many hay notices are simple "lowest responsive price" buys.

Selling to your state

States buy hay too (state wildlife areas, university farms, state parks), but each state runs its own purchasing website, there is no single national one. Search your state's name plus "vendor registration" or "procurement" (for example, Wisconsin uses VendorNet). Some states use shared platforms like Bonfire or BidNet. Register there the same way: free, one time, then watch for bids.

A few honest tips

• Government hay buys are not constant, they come up here and there, so it is a "watch and pounce" thing, not a steady income at first.
• Keep your SAM.gov registration active, it expires after a year if you do not renew, and an expired registration means you cannot bid.
• Your local APEX Accelerator (formerly PTAC) offers free help with government registration and bidding, worth a call if you get serious.
• Delivery and tonnage matter, agencies often need large, steady, delivered quantities, so team up or scale up if a bid is bigger than one cutting.

This is a plain-language starting guide, not legal or procurement advice. SAM.gov is the official federal system; always confirm current steps there.