New York State Grown & Certified Research and Development Grant Program

New York State Grown & Certified Research and Development Grant Program is sponsored by New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. This program assists New York State food producers, processors, distributors, and other eligible entities in bringing innovative NYS Grown & Certified products to market.

NYS Grown and Certified Grant Program NYS Grown & Certified ITRD Grant Program – Round 1 NYFVI is partnering with NYS Grown & Certified to administer a grant program to assist New York food and beverage producers, processors, distributors, and other eligible entities in bringing NYS Grown & Certified food and beverage products to market.

The first Request for Proposals (RFP) for the New York State Grown & Certified Infrastructure, Technology, Research and Development (NYS G&C ITRD) program closed on February 28th 2025. It focused on infrastructure and technology projects. A second RFP for Research and Development projects will be issued in 2026.

Projects must focus on one of the statewide priority areas: distribution capacity enhancement, processing and packaging, production automation and labor efficiency. The Request for Proposals (RFP) for Infrastructure and Technology projects was released November 25th, 2024. Applications must be submitted by 11:59 pm February 28, 2025.

If a farm or food system business is eligible for NYS G&C certification of a food and/or beverage product, they are eligible for this program. The NYS G&C program has worked hard to develop certification opportunities for a wide range of farms and food system businesses. Some applicants are eligible to be certified in more than one category.

A farm could be producing vegetables for the fresh market, and running a processing operation for additional products, or even aggregating products to bring to market for a group of farms. Applicants must be certified, or plan to become certified in the NYS G&C category that corresponds with the purpose of the funding request.

Some businesses, particularly those that aggregate and package products, may not see themselves in the certification categories.

Please reach out to the NYS Department of Agriculture and Market program team to identify the certification category for your business The team can also provide direction on if you should use your certification category for the grant application, or if your proposal should provide the information requested in the processor or distributor category.

More information about the NYS Grown & Certified program and its requirements is available here. NYS G&C ITRD funds are allocated and administered on a regional basis; however, the application for each group is the same. Applicants should use the physical location of their project when determining which group and corresponding application to select.

The groups were established based on groupings of the State’s Regional Economic Development Councils. This list, provides all REDCs organized by county.

Minimum grant award* Maximum grant award* Project Duration Track 1 – Small-scale $20,000 $50,000 24 months from contract execution Track 2 – Large-scale $50,001 $250,000 30 months from contract execution Both tracks require the applicant to provide and document the use of a 10% financial match. A match can be provided as cash, loans, or other non-New York State funds. In-kind costs are not permissible.

The match is not included in the minimum and maximum grant sizes in the table above. Informational Sessions — RECORDINGS The 90-minute webinars were organized and presented based on the NYS G&C certification categories listed below. The content for was similar, but the audience questions were different.

Note: due to some technical difficulties on December 10, the presentation from December 11 is the smoothest. All questions from all webinars are included in the Q&A document available in the resources section below. The slides are available here.

Full Request for Proposals The complete Request for Proposals (RFP) package for NYS G&C ITRD includes the documents that are linked below. Applicants are encouraged to read the Technical Requirements closely before developing their application. Technical Requirements : Outlines the specifics of the NYS G&C Infrastructure and Technology RFP.

This document also includes the appendices. Application : PDF of the online application form, which must be submitted using the sytem. Applicants must use the correct form for the regional group determined by the project’s location.

Note, the application is designed for online use and is more user friendly when viewed in the interactive format. Budget Template : Excel template that must be used to develop an applicant’s budget and uploaded as part of the online application. Register to access the Online Application This grant program is being administered entirely online.

Registration is required . The first section of the online application offers technical tips for using the online platform. While forms are identical for all NYS G&C ITRD regional groups , applicants must select and use the online application that corresponds with the location of the proposed project.

This will ensure the application is submitted and reviewed within the correct regional group. Please refer to the list in Appendix D to determine the correct regional group for your submission. This application form will collect information about the business, the potential impact of the grant funds to its operations, and its ability to bring NYS G&C product to market.

The purpose of the online application is to provide a consistent format that will allow proposals to be evaluated in a uniform and objective manner. Questions and Answers –Additional Webinar Sessions While NYFVI has shared a Q&A document on the website’s program page, we’ve heard from some applicants that they could use some additional guidance.

To help you work through your questions, two 60-minute Q&A sessions, were held and the recordings are posted online. Question and Answer Session 1: February 6, 2025 Question and Answer Session 2: February 7, 2025 All applicants are encouraged to read the materials on this web page in advance of the Q&A session. Both sessions will be recorded and the recording will be posted here following each session.

Technical Assistance Organizations that may be able to help develop proposals This list will be updated on an ongoing basis. NYS Grown & Certified Categories and this IT RFP NYS G&C ITRD Regional Groupings by county NYS Grown & Certified Dairy Processors SMART goals and SWOT fact shee t (directory of links to more information) Is the NYS G&C IT Grant A good fit for your business?

Optional SMART Goal worksheet for stand alone projects Optional SMART Goal worksheet for multi-stage projects NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets Press Release NYFVI NYS G&C IT RFP Open, Webinars Press Release NYFVI Flyer–Additional Q&A sessions scheduled