Levels of Research Facilities Act Project Grants

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Yesterday we reported on President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts provided $125 million annually for the Research Facilities Act program to modernize agricultural research facilities across the country. Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics Scott Hutchins says there are four different levels associated with this grant funding.

Hutchins… “ Level one is for planning grants, and these can be from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars. And these would be for activities like a needs assessment, site surveys, preliminary designs, and cost estimates. Basically, it's a planning grant. Level two would be a small facility upgrade, which might be an existing building or existing facility today, but just really needs to be refreshed and re-equipped perhaps in several ways. So that would be two hundred and fifty up to two million. Level three would be a mid-scale construction or expansion, and that could be in the range of two million to ten million. But this would include significant expansion, specialized research wings, and major retrofits to existing areas or adjacent to existing areas. Level four, which are large-scale research complex, which could be ten million to thirty million dollars for an entirely new building, a very highly specialized lab or controlled environment research facilities.”

The program is intended to strengthen research capacity and\meet the challenges facing America’s farmers and ranchers.