Dairy Cow Herd on Alexandre EcoDairy Farm
Applications from dairy processors in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington will be due February 29 for grants that will provide funding for pandemic recovery and for modernizing, specializing, expanding, investigating and/or marketing regionally produced higher-value milk products.
According to information provided by the Pacific Coast Coalition’s Dairy Business Innovation Initiative, the majority of available funding is for pandemic recovery grants, which can address price declines and additional marketing costs due to COVID-19.
Funds are intended to help dairy processors pursue innovations (either unique to their business and/or unique to the dairy industry) and/or recovery from pandemic challenges through launching or expanding value-added products beyond traditional fluid milk. The funds also help support employee retention as well as job creation.
Applicants need to choose one of nine dairy product innovation goals that they will pursue with the funds. The nine goals offer routes to achieving income diversification and income enhancements.
Applicants can utilize the questions focusing on project summary and activities and outcomes, as well as any additional information they wish to share with reviewers, to address how they are approaching overall business sustainability after lessons learned during the pandemic.
Please note that these funds are focused solely on the processing side and will not fund activities on the animal husbandry/milk production side of the business.
For more information including a useful Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and a link to the application, visit https://www.dairypcc.net/grant-applications/.
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This article was written by Susan Pheasant.
Susan Pheasant is the director of the Institute for Food and Agriculture at Fresno State University and “cowkeeper” for the Pacific Coast Coalition’s Dairy Business Innovation Initiative, part of a national initiative to help the dairy industry address ongoing supply chain and food system challenges.