Dear Colleagues,

The Specialty Crop Multi-State Program (SCMP) is a federal grant program offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA, AMS). The purpose of the SCMP is to competitively award funds to projects that enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops by funding collaborative, multi-state projects that address regional or national level specialty crop issues, including food safety, plant pests and disease, research, crop-specific projects addressing common issues, and marketing and promotion.  All prospective applicants are encouraged to review the 2021 SCMP Request for Applications on the USDA, AMS website: https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/2021_SCMP_RFA.pdf

Beginning September 24, 2021 additional information about the SCMP, including application instructions and templates will be available on the CDFA SCMP website: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Specialty_Crop_Competitiveness_Grants/SCMP.html

Grant awards will range from $250,000 to $1 million per project and projects may last for up to three years. Specialty crop producer associations and groups, other state agencies, Tribal government entities, universities, non-profits, and other stakeholder groups and organizations are eligible to apply. All SCMP proposals must include at least two partners (referred to as "multi-state partners") with substantive involvement in the project, and the multi-state partners must be located in two different states to qualify for the program.

The deadline to submit SCMP proposals to California is 1:59 p.m. PT on November 4, 2021. Proposals must be submitted electronically to grants@cdfa.ca.gov.

All questions regarding the SCMP should be emailed to grants@cdfa.ca.gov. Please stipulate in the subject line that your question is specific to the SCMP.

Thank you.

Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)