Rural Development Cooperative Agreement Program

USDA Rural Development Innovation Center in partnership with Rural Cooperative Business Service.
This program is to evaluate the impact of RD’s grants and loan programs on regional food supply chains. This
funding opportunity will be administered by the RD Innovation Center, in partnership with the United
States Department of Agriculture’s

Applicants are not eligible if they have been debarred or suspended or otherwise excluded from participation in Federal assistance programs under Executive Order 12549, “Debarment and Suspension.” Applicants are not eligible if they have an outstanding judgement obtained by the U.S. in a Federal Court (other than U.S. Tax Court), are delinquent on the payment of Federal income taxes, or are delinquent on a Federal debt. Any corporation that has been convicted of a felony criminal violation under any Federal law within the past 24 months or that has any unpaid Federal tax liability that has been assessed, for which all judicial and administrative remedies have been exhausted or have lapsed, and that is not being paid in a timely manner pursuant to an agreement with the authority responsible for collecting the tax liability, is not eligible for funding.

Applications are evaluated for eligibility for the program. Eligible applications are reviewed by the Agency and selected based on the reasonableness of the budget and on the priority of the proposed work.

Applications are typically approved/disapproved within 60-90 days of receipt.