State Block Grants Awarded to Texas and Mississippi
January 26, 2007
This week, during the USDA Fruit and Vegetable Advisory Committee meeting in Washington, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns announced that the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) awarded two states - Mississippi and Texas - block grants to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops. This announcement came as a result of the Specialty Crops Competitiveness Act of 2004 which authorizes USDA to make grants to states for each of the fiscal years 2005 through 2009 that can be used by state departments of agriculture to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops. The Texas Department of Agriculture will receive $156,488 and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture will receive $103,626 to fund programs they have designed to create new market opportunities for their specialty crop growers. Additional information can be found in the Sept. 11, 2006 Federal Register or on the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program website at www.ams.usda.gov/fv/. Applications for block grant funding requests will be accepted by AMS until Oct. 11, 2007. For additional information, please contact United Fresh director of legislative affairs, Autumn Veazey at (202) 303-3427.
United Fresh Produce Association
1901 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: 202 303 3400
Fax: 202 303 3433 united@unitedfresh.org
