USDA/NIFA: Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program 2024

Deadline: 10/30/2023

Size of the Grant: $400,000

Grant Duration: 48 months

Details:

The CFPCGP is designed to:

• • Meet the food needs of low-income individuals through food distribution, community outreach to assist in participation in Federally assisted nutrition programs, or improving access to food as part of a comprehensive service;
  • Increase the self-reliance of communities in providing for the food needs of the communities; and
  • Promote comprehensive responses to local food, food access, farm, and nutrition issues; or

Meet specific State, local, or neighborhood food and agricultural needs, including needs relating to:

• • • Equipment necessary for the efficient operation of a project;
    • Planning for long-term solutions; or
    • The creation of innovative marketing activities that mutually benefit agricultural producers and low-income consumers.

The CFPCGP is intended to bring together stakeholders from distinct parts of the food system and to foster understanding of national food security trends and how they might improve local food systems. Understanding that people with low incomes experience disproportionate access to healthy foods, projects should address food and nutrition security, particularly among the nation’s most vulnerable populations. Nutrition security is defined as having consistent access, availability, and affordability of foods and beverages that promote well-being. Applications from organizations that address food insecurity in rural, tribal, and underserved communities are encouraged.

The CFPCGP priorities directly align with USDA Strategic Goal 4: Make Safe, Nutritious Food Available to All Americans; Objective 4.1; Increase Food Security Through Assistance and Access to Nutritious and Affordable Food.

Types of Projects

Planning Projects (PP)

The purpose is to provide early-stage investment in new, startup projects or to invest in completing project plans toward the improvement of community food security in keeping with the primary goals of the CFPCGP . Planning Projects are to focus on a defined community and describe in detail the activities and outcomes of the planning project. The PP is to prepare a plan for a successful Community Food Project in keeping with the purpose of CFP program goals. Therefore, the PP is expected to model all aspects of the Community Food Projects.

PP Proposals: Preference will be given to proposals designed to:

• Develop linkages between two or more sectors of the food system including collaborating with one or more local partner organizations and using one or more action steps proposed by congress to achieve a “hunger-free communities’ goal;
• Support the development of entrepreneurial plans;
• Develop innovative connections between the for-profit and non-profit food organizations;
• Encourage long-term planning activities, and sustainable, multi-system, interagency approaches with collaborations from multiple stakeholders that build the sustainable capacity of communities to address the food and agricultural problems of the communities, such as food policy councils and food planning associations; or
• Develop plans for new resources and strategies to help reduce food insecurity in the community and prevent food insecurity in the future through planning strategies to:
  • Develop creative food resources on food systems;
  • Coordinate food services with park and recreation programs and other community based outlets to reduce barriers to access; or
  • Plan to create or leverage existing nutrition education programs for at-risk or vulnerable populations to enhance food-purchasing and food-preparation skills, and to heighten awareness of the connection between diet and health. Extant federally funded programs that can be leveraged include The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC), and The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Education (SNAPEd).
• Additionally, apply a systems approach to address social determinants of health (SDOH) and increase the capacity of communities to increase food security through assistance and access to nutritious and affordable food; and prioritize nutrition security and critical current and future effects of climate change on food systems. The CFPCGP seeks to improve food and nutrition security in limited resource communities through a Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework.

Community Food Projects (CFP)

The purpose is to seek solutions over the longer term rather than focusing on short-term food relief. They will seek comprehensive solutions to problems across all levels of the food system from farmer to consumer. Community food projects should not be designed to merely support individual food pantries, farmers markets, community gardens or other established projects. Rather, the community food projects should build on these experiences and encourage innovative long-term solutions to food and nutrition security. A successful project should be sustainable beyond government and matching funding. CFP should be designed to become selfsupporting (or have a sustainable funding source) and expand or prove to be a replicable model. Funding can support the development of such long-term projects or to accelerate or expand the work of a project. CFP are designed to create community-based food projects with objectives, activities and outcomes that are in alignment with CFPCGP primary goals.

CFP Proposals: Preference will be given to proposals designed to:

• Develop linkages between two or more sectors of the food system including collaborating with one or more local partner organizations and using one or more action steps proposed by congress to achieve a “hunger-free communities’ goal; Support entrepreneurial projects;
• Develop innovative connections between the for-profit and non-profit food sectors;
• Encourage long-term planning activities, and sustainable, multi-system approaches that build capacity of communities to address the food and agricultural problems of communities.
• Develop new resources and strategies to help reduce food insecurity in the community and prevent food insecurity in the future by:
  • Developing creative food and nutrition security solutions within the food systems;
  • Coordinating food services with park and recreation programs and other communitybased outlets to reduce barriers to access; or
  • Creating or leveraging existing nutrition programs for at-risk or vulnerable populations to enhance food-purchasing and food-preparation skills and to heighten awareness of the connection between diet and health. Extant federally funded programs that can be leveraged include The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC), and The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Education (SNAP-Ed).
• Additionally, preference will be given to CFP proposals that apply a systems approach to address social determinants of health (SDOH) and increase the capacity of communities to increase food security through assistance and access to nutritious and affordable food; and prioritize nutrition security and critical current and future effects of climate change on food systems. CFPCGP seeks to improve food and nutrition security in limited resource communities through a SDOH framework. For this RFA, the SDOH framework is defined as conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play that can affect health risks and outcomes. Food systems are defined as a range of sectors or subsystems and activities involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food products that originate from agriculture, forestry or fisheries, and parts of the broader economic, societal, and natural environments in which they are embedded. A sustainable food system is one that delivers food and nutrition security equitably in such a way that the economic, social, and environmental bases to generate food and nutrition security for future generations are not compromised.

Funding Information

• The amount available for the CFPCGP in 2024 is approximately $4,800,000.
• The minimum award is $125,000 over 12 months and maximum award is $400,000 over 48 months.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for a grant under CFPCGP, a public food program service provider, a tribal organization, or a private nonprofit entity, including gleaners, must

• have experience in the area of
  • community food work, particularly concerning small and medium-sized farms, including the provision of food to people in communities with low incomes and the development of new markets in communities with low incomes for agricultural producers;
  • job training and business development activities for food-related activities in communities with low incomes; or
  • efforts to reduce food insecurity in the community, including food distribution, improving access to services, or coordinating services and programs;
• demonstrate competency to implement a project, provide fiscal accountability, collect data, and prepare reports and other necessary documentation;
• demonstrate a willingness to share information with researchers, practitioners, and other interested parties; and
• collaborate with one or more local partner organizations using one or more action steps proposed by congress to achieve a “hunger-free communities’ goal.

For more information, visit Grants.gov.