The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF) awarded through the USDA AMS Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) program.
Donor Name: Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF)
State: Utah
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 03/31/2024
Size of the Grant: $500,000 to $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The purpose of the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) program is to build resilience in the middle of the food supply chain, to provide more and better markets to small farms and food businesses, to support the development of value-added products for consumers, fair prices, fair wages, and new and safe job opportunities.
Through this program UDAF will be issuing competitive sub-award grants to support the development of the middle-of-the-supply-chain for Utah-based food and farm businesses. Grant projects may include activities that support the aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storage, transportation, wholesaling, and distribution of locally and regionally produced food products. Eligible food products include dairy, grains for human consumption, fruits and vegetables, aquaculture, and other food products (excluding meat and poultry products and animal feed products).
Applicants Must Choose One of Two Grant Types
- Infrastructure Grants of $100,000 to $750,000.
- Simplified Equipment-only Grants of $10,000 to $100,000.
Priorities
As determined through a public survey, the priorities for the RFSI grant are projects that improve the:
- Distribution;
- Processing;
- Manufacturing;
- Wholesaling;
- Regular/Cold Storage; and
- Aggregation opportunities for Utah producers.
Projects that:
- Construct new facilities;
- Modernize processing/manufacturing equipment;
- Improve overall water efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or improve air/water quality related to processing;
- Modernize technological systems;
- Or provide training and worker safety opportunities are more likely to be funded.
Eligible Projects
Entities will choose from one of two grant types: 1) Infrastructure projects, or 2) simplified Equipment-Only projects. The following list are examples of eligible projects for both of the grant types. This list is not exhaustive and entities should reach out to the state agency with any questions about their desired project. Eligible projects include, but are not limited to:
- Construction of new facilities;
- Construction of wastewater management structures;
- Modernization or expansion of existing facilities;
- Improvement of water efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and air or water quality;
- Improvement or modernization of information technology systems;
- Purchase of special use equipment to improve:
- Packaging, including grading, sorting, and labeling;
- Processing, canning, preserving, or pasteurizing crops;
- Extraction of juice, oil, nut meat, etc. from crops;
- Processing crops, such as chopping, washing, peeling, drying, hulling, milling, shelling, etc.;
- Creating value-added products via cooking, baking, juicing, fermenting, distilling, processing, etc.;
- Processes or activities involving tracking, storage, cold storage, warehouse, and/or distribution of crops and/or products;
- Capacity of entities to comply with federal, state, and local food safety requirements; and
- Enhancing worker safety and/or education in the above or similar activities.
Eligibility Criteria
- Agricultural producers or processors, groups of agricultural producers and processors, nonprofit organizations operating middle-of-the-supply-chain activities, 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 are eligible. Please note that for-profit entities must meet the eligibility requirements of the SBA small business size standards matched to industries described in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
- 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, distribution of targeted agricultural producer.
- 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, distribution of targeted agricultural products.
- Cooperatives, farmer- and worker-owned enterprises are especially encouraged to apply.
For more information, visit UDAF.
