Have you been holding off on buying that new wash station, food processing equipment, cold storage or electric delivery van? The U.S. Department of Agriculture is partnering with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to provide critical one-time funding to help farmers and food businesses with middle of the supply chain (processing, aggregation & distribution) infrastructure needs through the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) Program. And CAFF is here to help!
Over the next few weeks, CAFF’s team is ready to help you submit a grant to take full advantage of the opportunity. Please fill out our intake form below as soon as you can to get started and join us for office hours for additional support. Note: there are some financial or time match requirements for the grant opportunities.
Grant deadlines:
CAFF intake form due: February 2, 2024
Application due to CDFA: February 26, 2024
Apply for Application Technical Assistance from CAFF
Examples of fundable project categories include:
- Packaging, including grading, sorting, and labeling;
- Processing, canning, preserving, or pasteurizing crops;
- Extraction of juice, oil, nut meat, etc. from crops;
- Processing crops, such as chopping, washing, peeling, drying, hulling, milling, shelling, etc.;
- Creating value-added products via cooking, baking, juicing, fermenting, distilling, processing, etc.;
- Processes or activities involving tracking, storage, cold storage, warehouse, and/or distribution of crops and/or products;
- Enhancing worker safety and/or education in the above or similar activities;
- Modernizing, developing, or expanding equipment or facilities for the above or similar activities.
Learn more about Food Safety-related infrastructure options here.
CAFF Food Safety (Virtual) Office Hours:
For questions about food safety equipment needs, feel free to join our staff weekly office hours.
Mondays, 3:30-4:30pm
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87063630946?pwd=WW9EQ3VlUmpYYVJYbGd3VEFpWW50dz09
Meeting ID: 870 6363 0946
Passcode: 706014