Applications for individual specialty crop projects must be submitted to your State Departments of Agriculture to be considered for funding. To learn more about how to apply for Specialty Crop Block Grant Program funding, contact your State Department of Agriculture Project Coordinator.

State Departments of Agriculture are encouraged to partner with specialty crop stakeholders, including socially disadvantaged and beginning farmers, in order to fulfill State specialty crop priorities.

The fifty States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands are eligible to apply directly to the Agricultural Marketing Service.

You can access information about your State Department of Agriculture and the State’s Specialty Crop Project Coordinator at SCBGP State Contacts. This web page also provides a link to the State Department of Agriculture, which will provide you with information about the application process.

You can access information concerning the definition of specialty crops and a listing of eligible specialty crops at Definition of Specialty Crops.

Grants usually go to state and local governments or nonprofit organizations, which then use the money to operate assistance programs locally. However, there are grant and loan opportunities for individuals within the federal government. Several sources for government grant and loan opportunities include (but are not limited to) Grants.gov, USA.gov, the Catalog of Federal Assistance (CFDA), and GovBenefits.gov. A good starting point for a search for individual grant and loan opportunities could include visiting Ask FSA: Your Online Knowledge Base.

A project is multi-state when an organization receives SCBGP-FB funding from more than one state to execute the same or multiple components of the same project. These projects are typically of interest to or bring benefit to both states from which funding is sought.

To apply for a multi-state project, you should contact the departments of agriculture in the states to which you plan to apply. Because application forms, processes, and deadlines vary from state to state, it is important to contact the states to which you wish to apply as early as possible. Alert them to your interest in applying for a multistate project and ask them about their processes and deadlines.