MARBIDCO Grant Programs
Certified Local Farm and Fish Enterprise Food Aggregation Grant Fund Programs - Currently CLOSED
To suppport the establishment or expansion of farm food aggregation in Maryland
Many farmers wanting to access more diverse markets for their agricultural products often face challenges in producing the volume of food items required to meet the demand of large buyers like wholesale food distributors and institutional buyers such as schools and hospitals. Table crop producers may also produce a significant quantity of raw agricultural products (e.g., “seconds’) that are not suitable for immediate sale to fresh retail consumer markets but would have value if processed and preserved for later sale to wholesale and institutional markets.
Photo: South Mountain MicroFarm
Overview
In 2020, Senate Bill 985/ House Bill 1488 was passed that establishes the Certified Local Farm Enterprise Program and Certified Local Farm Enterprise Food Aggregation Grant Fund. The bill was the result of a year-long study by the Maryland Food for Maryland Institutions Study Group, established by the General Assembly in 2019. Based on the Group’s recommendations, the bill establishes a 20% procurement goal for Maryland State agencies and institutions to purchase locally grown food from certified local farm enterprises. (as determined by MDA). Many institutional and wholesale buyers that want to purchase locally sourced food find it difficult in contracting with small farmers to meet their supply sourcing needs. For this reason, the bill and related legislation also established a pool of funding for MARBIDCO to be able to offer the Local Farm Enterprise Food Aggregation grants to help support the development of a local food aggregation infrastructure in Maryland to help meet current and future wholesale and institutional market demand for locally produced food products. For FY 2023, MARBIDCO has $680,000 available to fund projects for Small-Scale Farmer Aggregation projects and Public Entity Led Aggregation projects.
Program Description
The purpose of the Certified Local Farm Enterprise Food Aggregation Grant Program is to demonstrate how the investment of funds can help to grow and strengthen Maryland’s local food system and to create opportunities for small farmers to sell products to wholesale and institutional markets. The grant funds will be used to fund projects that help small farmers aggregate their product to sell to institutional or wholesale buyer.
MARBIDCO offers two levels of grant funding for food aggregation projects. See below for more information:
Small-Scale Farmer Entity Aggregation Project – A grant of between $25,000 and $100,000 is available. Applicants for the small-scale farmer-led aggregation grant must include at least four Certified Local Farm Enterprise farmers and applicants must provide at least a 20% match of private funds in the project. Eligible Applicants include an agricultural marketing group (an LLC), or legally organized farm cooperative using the grant funds to purchase cold storage equipment or construct an indoor processing facility in order to better handle products moving to wholesale and institutional buyers. The applicant must provide evidence that it will be selling some quantity of product to a specific wholesale or institutional buyer. An example could be the public school system. This could be in the form of a contract or letter of commitment, which specifies it will purchase a certain amount of product.
Small-Scale Farmer Entity Aggregation Project Application: WORD PDF
Public Sector Aggregation Project – A grant of between $150,000 and $400,000 is available. Applicants for the larger scale aggregation grant will be a public entity (such as a county government, municipality, community college, university, county school system or rural regional council). The grant is for public projects that plan to be primarily aggregation centers for wholesale and institutional buyers.
Public Sector Aggregation Project Application: WORD PDF