Specialty Crop Multi-State Program (SCMP)

The Specialty Crop Multi-State Program (SCMP) offers grants to solely enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops by funding collaborative, multi-state projects that address the following regional or national level specialty crop issues: food safety; plant pests and disease; research; crop-specific projects addressing common issues; and marketing and promotion.

Participating State departments of agriculture will assume administrative responsibility for any application they submit that is selected for funding. As the award recipients, they will establish subgrants and/or contracts with the multi-state partners to complete the project. Project partners bring specialized knowledge and expertise, research capability, and/or other resources needed to conduct a successful project. Examples of project partners include but are not limited to, the following entities: Tribes, Non-participating State departments of agriculture, Participating State departments of agriculture, but only if they have more than an administrative role in the project, State agencies such as a State department of public health, a State department of natural resources, etc., Land grant or State universities or colleges, Specialty crop producer organizations, Non-profit organizations, Federal entities such as USDA agricultural research stations, and Agricultural Research Service research centers.

This program enhances competitiveness of specialty crops and supports investing in specialty crop research, which includes conservation, plant pests and disease, environmental outcomes, sustainability, seed varieties / cultivars that will need to be resilient to changes in climate and extreme weather events, research on changes to pest and disease pressures and control methods with climate change, and improving efficiency of distribution systems.