Minnesota Fiscal Year (FY20) Contribution Agreement Notice of Funding Opportunity

Description

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is announcing potential availability of contribution agreements for the purpose of leveraging NRCS resources, addressing local natural resource issues, encouraging collaboration and developing state- and community-level conservation leadership. Applications will only be accepted for the following initiatives. Prescribed Burning Provide trainings for Job Approval Authority (JAA) and Increase public awareness of the benefits of prescribed fire on the landscape Write prescribed burn plans for implementation under NRCS programs Identify obstacles to building prescribed fire service capacity and develop networks of burn associations Develop promotional and technical materials related to prescribed fire Field to market expansion Increase connectivity of the end user to the producer to improve adoption of conservation systems on the land Increase the public and end users understanding of agriculture production and the stewardship ethic of producers through demonstration projects, field tours, symposia, and social media Enable a free market-based program to incentivize adoption of conservation practices and stewardship systems Pilot a market-based payment and/or exchange system to encourage long term stewardship Host a symposium to explore various systems that could be used to increase conservation adoption on agricultural and private forest lands Applications containing proposals outside of the scope of the above initiatives will not be considered. NRCS anticipates that the amount available for support of this program in FY 2020 will be $2,500,000. Minimum/Maximum individual award amounts are anticipated to be $50,000/$1,500,000.00. Proposals are requested from all domestic applicants for competitive consideration of contribution agreement awards for projects between 2 and 3 years in duration. This notice identifies the objectives, eligibility criteria, and application instructions for projects. Proposals will be screened for completeness and compliance with the provisions of this notice. Incomplete and/or noncompliant proposals will be eliminated from competition, and notification of elimination will be sent to the applicant. Key Dates Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on June 17, 2020 via Grants.gov. Funding decisions will be made by the Minnesota NRCS State Conservationist, based on recommendations from a selection committee and the availability of funding in the programs whose CFDA numbers are listed above. Other key dates are: Questions about NFO received by: June 1, 2020 Responses to Questions published by: June 8, 2020 Application Submission Due Date: June 17, 2020 Application Review and Selection: July 17, 2020 Anticipated Agreement Start Date: September 1, 2020 For technical issues with Grants.gov, please contact Grants.gov Applicant Support at 1-800-518-4726 or support@grants.gov. Awarding agency staff cannot support applicants regarding Grants.gov accounts. For more information see the Full Announcement in the Related Documents tab of this opportunity.

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