Contacts:
Colleen Leonard, (802) 828-2790
Kelly Loftus, Agency of Agriculture, (802) 828-3829

Monday, August 30, 2010

The Vermont Agriculture Innovation Center would like to announce the release of five “Requests for Proposals” to enhance value-added agriculture in Vermont. Senator Patrick Leahy secured one million dollars for the Vermont Agriculture Innovation Center to continue its work and disburse funds for 2010. Senator Leahy comments that “Vermont is reaping a harvest of new businesses and stronger farms with the growth of innovative and value-added agricultural products. It is heartening to see this first round of competitive grants to cultivate these new ventures.”

The goals of the Innovation Center program are to fund state-based Agriculture Innovation programs that provide technical, marketing and organizational development services to value-added agricultural businesses. “Value-added” businesses include farms that do some level of processing for raw products, alternative production (e.g. organic), diversified farming, or local foods marketing. The Vermont Agriculture Innovation Center (AIC) was created in 2009 when Senator Patrick Leahy secured $469,000 in funding through the USDA’s Agriculture Innovation Demonstration Center program to continue its work and disburse funds to strategically enhance value-added agriculture in the state of Vermont. FY 2010 funding will be available in five high-leverage project areas including; 1) Improving Systems of Technical & Business Assistance for Value-Added Agricultural & Ag Related Business, 2) Infrastructure Development – Processing & Storage, 3) Market Development, 4) Professional & Organizational Development, and 5) Workforce Development.

The funds available for Technical and Business Assistance for Value-Added Agricultural and Ag Related Businesses are $300,000 total and $75,000 - $150,000 per project. The goals of this project area are to close gaps in both services provided and value-added producers served, shorten time to start up of value-added agricultural businesses, and increase likelihood of ongoing success for all value-added businesses. Applications in this category are being encouraged from service providers that represent organizations, businesses and/or individuals who are building or improving systems of value-added technical and business assistance.

The funds available for Infrastructure Development – Processing & Storage are $200,000 total and $15,000 - $40,000 per phase of each project. The goals of this project area are to increase market access through facilities to aggregate product, process raw products into forms most useful to consumer, and create value-added premium products, assess physical components as part of a larger strategic plan to improve processing and storage bottlenecks, and address productivity in the meat industry. Applications are being encouraged from organizations and/or individuals to assist in planning stages of projects that address gaps in value-added processing facilities and storage facilities in Vermont. Funding in this category cannot be used to invest directly in infrastructure or equipment, the intent is to bring projects up to the point of that investment, through helping fund all necessary preparation.

The funds available for Market Development are $150,000 total and $5,000 - $30,000 per project. The goals of this project area are to build local and regional markets for value-added Vermont products, support emerging product lines through collaboration along every point of the supply chain, and support greater producer control in establishing market outlets and price. Applications in this category are being encouraged from farmers, processors, distributers, organizations, businesses and/or individuals to offer specific market development projects based on the value-added product and the producers’ goals along the full supply chain.

The funds available for Workforce Development are $130,000 total and $5,000 - $50,000 per project. The goals of this project are to ensure current skills training matches needs of value-added agriculture, increase experience-based learning, and attract more people to value-added agricultural professions. Applications in this project area are being encouraged from organizations and/or individuals to offer workforce development projects that attract and build value-added agricultural skills, and/or provide value-added experience-based learning programs.

The funds available for Professional & Organizational Development are $100,000 total and $5,000 - $15,000 per project. The goals for this project are to improve both capacity and efficiency in support services to value-added farmers, improve exchanges with other regions, and support peer-based learning networks. Applications in this project area are being encouraged from farmers, organizations and/or individuals to offer professional and organizational development in peer-to-peer learning networks for producers, exchanges with other regions, and organizational capacity building.

All project proposals need to benefit value-added agriculture and be completed by September 30, 2011. Strong preference will be given to proposals that demonstrate partnerships between multiple organizations, have a statewide reach, are innovative, and build on existing programs. Proposals will need to benefit more than one person or business. Proposals will also need to present a budget that demonstrates a match of non-federal funds equal to at least 60% of the total budget. In-kind contributions can count toward the match. For FY 2010, the AIC will consider strong proposals that have an insufficient match, pending further match development.

The “Request for Proposals” are available on the Vermont Agency of Agriculture web-site under “Hot Topics” at http://www.vermontagriculture.com/ . For more information, please contact Colleen Leonard at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture at colleen.leonard@state.vt.us or (802) 828-2790.