Deadline: 19-May-23
The Commodity Credit Corporation and Foreign Agricultural Service are currently seeking applications for its 2024 Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops Program.
Program Overview, Objectives, and Priorities
The TASC program is designed to assist U.S. organizations by providing funding for projects that seek to remove, resolve, or mitigate existing or potential sanitary, phytosanitary, or technical barriers that prohibit or threaten the export of U.S. specialty crops. The TASC program is administered by personnel of the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) on behalf of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC).
Funding Information
- Total Award Funding: Anticipated to be $9,000,000
- Period of Performance Start Date(s): 10/01/2023
- Period of Performance End Date(s): 10/30/2028
- Award Ceiling: $500,000
- Award Floor: $1
Eligible Activities
- To be found eligible for consideration, TASC applications must address the following criteria:
- Applications must identify and address an existing or potential sanitary, phytosanitary, or technical barrier that prohibits or threatens the export of commercially available U.S. specialty crops;
- Applications must demonstrate that the proposed activities will benefit an entire industry rather than a specific company or brand;
- Applications must include an explanation as to what specifically could not be accomplished without Federal funding assistance and why the eligible organization(s) would be unlikely to carry out the project without such assistance; and
- Applications must include performance measures for quantifying progress and demonstrating results. The proposed performance measures must meet the following criteria:
- Aligned: the indicator must clearly measure the relevant result.
- Clear: the indicator must be precise and unambiguous about what is being measured and how. There must be no doubt on how to measure or interpret the indicator.
- Quantifiable: the indicator must sufficiently capture all the elements of a result.
- Include an identified methodology: it must be clear that the data used to inform the indicator can be obtained in a timely and efficient manner and will be of high quality. The full set of indicators selected to monitor project performance must be sufficient to inform project management and oversight.
Eligibility Criteria
- To participate in the TASC program, an entity must be a U.S. organization, either government or private, with a demonstrated role or interest in exporting U.S. agricultural specialty crops. Government organizations consist of Federal, State, and local agencies. Private organizations may include non–profit trade associations, universities, agricultural cooperatives, state regional trade groups, and private companies.
- Foreign organizations, whether government or private, may participate as third parties in activities carried out by eligible organizations, but are not eligible for direct funding assistance through the program.
- Eligible Commodities: U.S. specialty crops. For the purposes of the TASC program, specialty crops are defined as most cultivated plants, or the products thereof, produced in the U.S. except wheat, feed grains, oilseeds, cotton, rice, peanuts, sugar, and tobacco. Applications may cover more than one U.S. specialty crop.
- Eligible Markets: Applications may target any foreign market, including single countries or reasonable regional groupings of countries.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.