Urban Agriculture and Urban County Committee Outreach, Technical Assistance, and Education

Assistance from USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) to selected eligible applicants to conduct targeted outreach and technical assistance on FSA programs in urban areas, with an emphasis on communities of disadvantaged, historically-underserved, beginning, and veteran socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers in urban areas. Socially disadvantaged groups are defined as a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities. Outreach and technical assistance are focused on educating agricultural producers in one or more of FSA’s Urban County Committee (COC) Pilot locations and other urban areas. These agreements will support urban agriculture outreach, research, training, technical assistance, and education projects through non-competitive cooperative agreements with local organizations. Micro-grants may be authorized to urban agricultural producers as beneficiaries as needed for projects that support the goals of this opportunity and for areas where USDA funding already isn’t available. FSA must approve the project plan before the micro-grant portion of any proposal could be implemented. With the complex nature of some of FSA’s programs, FSA will focus additional outreach and education to producers in areas who could benefit from additional outreach in order to (1) increase knowledge, awareness, and participation in FSA and USDA programs and services associated with growing food in an urban area; (2) assist farmers with expanding their farming operations, accessing land, and implementing climate-friendly practices that can mitigate their susceptibility to natural disasters in urban areas; and (3) increase representation of underserved farmers serving on Urban County Committees.

Universities, Higher Education, and Non-Profit entities.

Non-competitive applications will be accepted from organizations that have been identified as key partners who can assist with establishing and growing FSA’s Urban COC pilot and are uniquely positioned to help expand the pilot and identify the needs of urban producers. The pilot is currently underway, and efforts are being made to provide additional support to urban producers, immediately. Applications will be screened for completeness and compliance with the provisions of this notice. Applications will undergo an administrative review to ensure that the proposed activities fulfill the purpose and goals outlined in this announcement. The agency intends to make a selection after allowing applicants to correct deficiencies or omissions in their applications. Regardless, applicants must ensure their applications are complete and accurate. The agency reserves the right to request applicants to revise their applications to correct deficiencies or omissions it identifies. If this occurs, the agency will conduct discussions with all applicants, identify deficiencies and omissions for all, and give applicants an opportunity to submit a revised application. The agency may also contact individual applicants to clarify certain components of their applications. The agency reserves the right to not make awards to applicants that are non-responsive to agency requests and not in compliance with the provisions provided by the agency. Technical reviews will be conducted by a technical review board in a multi-phase review process in which an interagency staff panel from FPAC agencies will make recommendations to the deciding official. The approving official will make the final award decisions. The approving official for this opportunity is the FSA Associate Administrator.