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USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative proposal to build on the collaborative
Last week a number of us submitted a grant proposal to the USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative, under the Regional Partnerships for Innovation program. The executive summary is attached to this blog. The rest of the proposal, for those interested, will be posted to the Regional and National Partners group. We hope this will be successful and that we'll be able to intensify and build on the collaborations we've started since the workshop last February, through this site and through the relationships developed among subscribers.
As always, if there are ways that we can improve the site so that it works better for you, please don't hesitate to contact the site administrators.
Regards,
Casey
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| USDASCRIProjSummary.pdf | 69.71 KB |
- Casey Hoy's blog
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Comments
Casey, congratulations!
Casey, congratulations! This is a big grant! Well done. I need, however, to know what "speciality crops" you are referring to and is there any area that might address the needed poultry slaughter facilities for smallish farmers, things like that, on-farm processing of those small crops?
Sylvia
specialty crops defined
Here is a bit of clarification, straight from the request for proposals:
"Specialty crops are defined in law as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and nursery crops including floriculture"
So the poultry slaughter facilities would be a bit of a stretch, but the program we applied to had more to do with technology innovation around producing, processing, distributing, and marketing specialty crops:
" As new technologies emerge from the SCRI, there will be a need to help those products reach commercialization so that they become available for adoption by specialty crop industries. The Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs help individual small businesses develop and prototype pre-commercial products and services. However, there often remains a gap in organizational and networking resources resulting in a lack of “support networks” that encourage regional economic development. Broad-based partnerships can provide the local or regional infrastructure needed to fully exploit future technology commercialization and adoption. These networks would be comprised of partnerships among universities, local governments, financial stakeholders, end-user industries, manufacturers, community organizations, etc."
Support networks are us. Innovations in on-farm processing technology certainly fit and I think that our support network could be capable of helping to bring innovations beyond just the specialty crops to the marketplace. In fact, the more utility this support network can bring the easier it will be to sustain over the longer term.