The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) is currently accepting applications for grant projects under the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program (RFSI).
Donor Name: Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
State: Pennsylvania
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 03/30/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 3 Years
Details:
Funds for the program were awarded to PDA by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
The RFSI program will transform the food system to benefit consumers, producers, and rural communities by providing more options, increasing access, and creating new, more, and better markets for small and mid-size producers. To be more resilient, the food system of the future needs to be more diversified, distributed, and local.
Funding Priorities
The USDA encourages projects that benefit underserved farmers and ranchers, new and beginning farmers and ranchers, veteran producers, and processors and other middle of the supply chain businesses owned by socially disadvantaged individuals, as defined by the Small Business Administration (SBA).
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture will prioritize funding projects that pertain to the following gaps identified in the middle of the food supply chain in Pennsylvania.
- Aggregation Points – Aggregation points, include food hubs or farmer cooperatives to help individual producers fulfill bigger orders while saving costs on storage, packaging, and distribution.
- Food Processing Infrastructure – As Pennsylvanian food processors look to expand their production capacities by adding product types, increasing production volumes, or increasing packaging and labeling capacities for retail product lines, they need to upgrade equipment and often need to move to a licensed space outside of their homes. Food processing infrastructure also includes large-scale commercial equipment.
- Storage – In Pennsylvania, more storage is needed to hold produce to be washed and distributed. Limited cold storage is available in urban areas. More storage is also needed to segregate and supply identity preserved grains, whole grains, and dry bean for human consumption to processing plants in Pennsylvania.
Grants Available
- Infrastructure Grants: Infrastructure Grants will range in value from a minimum award of $100,000 and a maximum award of $3,000,000. Funds will be awarded no earlier than July 1, 2024, and projects must be completed by May 24, 2027.
- Matching Fund Requirement: Infrastructure Grant recipients are required to contribute 50% of the total proposed project cost as a match to federal funding. This applies to all applicants except those who qualify for the reduced match. For historically underserved farmers and ranchers, or for other businesses that qualify under SBA categories of small, disadvantaged business, women-owned small business, or veteran-owned small business, the required match funding contribution or cost share is reduced to 25% of the project cost. PDA will require that applicants self-certify in their Infrastructure Grant applications to be eligible for this reduced match.
Eligibility Criteria
Entities eligible for grants under the RFSI program are:
- Agricultural producers or processors, or groups of agricultural producers and processors.
- Nonprofit organizations operating middle of the supply chain activities such as processing, aggregation, distribution of targeted agricultural products.
- For-profit entities operating middle of the supply chain activities such as processing, aggregation, or distribution of targeted agricultural products, whose activities are primarily focused for the benefit of local and regional producers, and that meet the eligibility requirements of the SBA small business size standards.
- Local government entities operating middle of the supply chain activities such as processing, aggregation, or distribution of targeted agricultural products.
- Tribal governments operating middle of the supply chain activities such as processing, aggregation, or distribution of targeted agricultural products.
- Institutions such as schools, universities, or hospitals bringing producers together to establish cooperative or shared infrastructure or invest in equipment that will benefit multiple producers middle of the supply chain activities such as processing, aggregation, or distribution of targeted agricultural product.
For more information, visit PDA.
