Description
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, announces this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to support the Market Access Program (MAP) by issuing new awards. The program aims to foster expanded exports and market diversification by encouraging the development, maintenance, and expansion of diverse commercial export markets for United States agricultural commodities and products. Eligible applicants include nonprofit U.S. agricultural trade organizations, nonprofit state regional trade groups, U.S. agricultural cooperatives, and state agencies.
Key aspects of the program include:
* The program will provide financial assistance to eligible participants to share the cost of certain marketing and promotion activities.
* The program aims to cover as broad an array of agricultural commodities as possible, with all U.S. agricultural commodities except tobacco being eligible for consideration.
* The program will prioritize organizations with the broadest producer representation and affiliated industry participation of the commodity being promoted.
* Applicants will be evaluated based on factors such as program strategic planning, program management and implementation, and program evaluation and results reporting.
* The program requires a cost share, with the cost share for generic activities being at least 10 percent of the total amount reimbursed by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) for all approved generic activities.
* The program has a total available federal funding of $450,500,000, with an anticipated 70 awards.