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OLYMPIA – The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) is now accepting applications from Washington-based entities that are the lead on projects with multiple state partners for the 2021 Specialty Crop Multi-State Program (SCMP).Nearly $10 million is available for these multi-state specialty crop grants, available to benefit specialty crops across several states in the country.
 
These grants aim to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops by funding collaborative, multi-state projects that address regional or national level issues including: food safety; plant pests and disease; research; crop-specific projects addressing common issues; and marketing and promotion.
 
The SCMP is a federal grant program offered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. Specialty crops include fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops (including floriculture).
 
All prospective applicants are encouraged to review the 2021 SCMP Request for Applications on the USDA, AMS website.  Any applicants applying to WSDA’s Specialty Crop Multi-State Program should use WSDA’s templates, all of which are located on WSDA’s SCMP website.
 
Grant awards will range from $250,000 to $1 million per project and projects may last up to three years. Specialty crop producer associations and groups, other state agencies, Tribal government entities, universities, nonprofits, 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 WSDA is 5 p.m. PST, November 4, 2021. Proposals must be submitted electronically to scmp@agr.wa.gov.
 
Visit agr.wa.gov/grants or email scmp@agr.wa.gov for more information about the 2021 Specialty Crop Multi-State Program.