Do you have an on-farm produce safety project in mind, but haven’t found the time or the capital to make it happen? Now is the time to start planning for improvements for the next season, and if your farm is eligible, a Produce Safety Improvement Grant can help.
A Vermont Produce Safety Improvement Grant (PSIG) can partially defray the costs of implementing on-farm food safety practices in order to help growers transition to compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule and/or meet market demands for on-farm food safety.
Applicants must grow, harvest, pack, or hold “covered produce” as defined by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s FSMA Produce Safety Rule and have average annual produce sales of greater than $26,528 over the past three years.1
Eligible use of funds includes, but is not limited to: harvest, wash, pack, and storage supplies, wash/pack area construction or renovation, monitoring/control devices, handwashing stations, cleaning/sanitization tools, health and hygiene signage, compost/manure handling improvements, and materials and systems to improve training and record-keeping.
How to Apply
- Mark your calendars! Grant applications will be accepted no later than Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:59pm.
- Visit agriculture.vermont.gov/ProduceSafetyGrants to read the 2019 PSIG Request for Applications (RFA).
- Contact the grant manager as soon as possible with any questions about the grant or how to apply; assistance might not be available shortly before grant deadlines.
- Utilize the produce safety expertise of the UVM Extension Produce Safety Team at producesafety@uvm.edu to help plan for your produce safety improvement project (optional, but recommended).
Note: Farms that previously received a PSIG grant are ineligible to apply for this round of funding.
Approximately $51,000 in funding provided by the Vermont State Legislature, the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, and the Castanea Foundation, LLC, will be available in the fourth round of the Produce Safety Improvement Grant program. Farms can apply for a minimum of $2000 and a maximum of $7000 in grant funds.
Questions related to Produce Safety Improvement Grants or the FSMA Produce Safety Rule should be directed to Gina Clithero at (802) 585-6225 or AGR.FSMA@vermont.gov.
1 The term covered produce includes any raw fruit or vegetable commonly consumed raw, as defined by the FDA. The complete definition, as well as instructions for how to calculate average annual produce sales for the purposes of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule, can be found in the 2019 PSIG Grant RFA, located at agriculture.vermont.gov/ProduceSafetyGrants.