Specialty Crop Block Grants

 The Idaho State Department of Agriculture recently announced the competitive solicitation process to award Specialty Crop Block Grants.  The USDA has allocated these funds to the state and ISDA will be passing them through as competitive grants.   Funds will be available to interested local, state and federal government, non-profit and for-profit organizations and universities as competitive grants.  Specialty crops include fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture.

ISDA’s Lacey Menasco explains why these grants exist: “The Specialty Crop grant is part of the farm bill, and it’s designed to assist crops and producers that don’t have other programs supporting them. There’s other programs that maybe give payments to soy bean producers or wheat producers but most of the fresh fruits and vegetables don’t have other government subsidies for them at all.”

Projects may include, but are not limited to, pest and disease control, enhancing food safety, developing new and improved seed varieties, increasing child and adult nutrition knowledge and consumption of specialty crops, market development, or developing good agricultural, handling or manufacturing practices.