Bison Production and Marketing Grant Program

To develop projects that strengthen and enhance the production and marketing of Bison and Bison products in the United States, including through the improvement of infrastructure, business, resource development, and through the development of innovative approaches to solve long-term needs.

Public nonprofit institution/organization (includes institutions of higher education and hospitals), Other public institution/organization, Federally Recognized lndian Tribal Governments, Private nonprofit institution/organization (includes institutions of higher education and hospitals), Quasi-public nonprofit institution/organization, Other (specify)
National entities whose mission is consistent with strengthening and enhancing the production and marketing of bison and bison products in the United States.
Eligible entities are described in the program’s request for applications. Eligible applicants include national entities with a mission consistent with the BPMGP’s purpose and must be located in the 50 States, American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands.

U.S. bison producers. Funds must be used to support one or more of the project types as identified in the Request for Applications. Funds must be used in accordance with the requirements of the Request for Applications and 2 CFR 200.Discretionary funds will be distributed as described in the request for applications.

AMS added a fourth step to its three step process for this program to evaluate each application submitted to the grant program and select applications for funding. Subgrant agreements are established with applicants based on the results of this four-step process to ensure compliance with requirement that Federal awarding agencies maintain a fair, unbiased merit review process in selecting competitively awarded grants. The Initial Qualification Screening is Step 1. In this step, the application is reviewed to ensure that they met the RFA’s basic requirements. Applications that met these basic requirements moved forward to Step 2. Step 2 is the evaluatation by panels of external peer reviewers. Selected reviewers have diverse expertise representing various entities with programmatic knowledge. To eliminate bias, AMS assigns applications to reviewers outside of their own geographic areas and avoids project assignments associated with reviewer businesses. Each reviewer also signs a conflict of interest and confidentiality agreement. Reviewers that indicate a real or perceived conflict do not review the affected application(s) and are removed from those application discussions. The panels analyze each application using the RFA’s evaluation criteria and instructions prepared by AMS. The peer review panels evaluate their assigned applications using instructions prepared by AMS officials. Individual reviewers score applications and then confer with other panel members. The scoring and discussion serve as the basis for awarding and allocating grant funds and focuses on strengths and weaknesses of each proposal. The Administrative Review is step 3. AMS conducts an administrative evaluation of each application in the review panels’ top rankings and recommendations. In addition to the applications’ scores, each award is reviewed to ensure that the recommended applications align with the grant program’s statutory purpose. Step 4 is the final application review and awarding.

Eligible applicants should contact the headquarters office for application deadlines. Annual application deadlines are posted in Grants.gov. More information can be found at www.ams.usda.gov/grants.