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all right so to get started here um the first important question is what is a specialty crop in the title of the grant program name but it's not a term that we hear very often when we're talking about agriculture and food systems so all of these photos that you see on the screen these are all examples of different specialty crops um the most common specialty crops that we see in vermont are fruits and vegetables culinary herbs and spices medicinal plants nursery crops flora culture horticulture christmas trees honey hops maple syrup and mushrooms in general all agricultural products that are not animal products or oil fiber or grain field crops are considered specialty crops and that's in general and more than half of the farms in vermont according to the 2017 usda ag census more than half of the farms in vermont grow one form of specialty crop or another so especially crops contribute important diversity to the vermont agricultural landscape and this grant program helps us ensure a long-term viable future for these crucial agricultural and horticultural industries so just some context and background for the specialty crop block grant program funding opportunity that we're going to be talking about today this is a federally funded program authorized by the 2004 2014 and 2018 farm bills it's administered by usda's agricultural marketing service the block grants are awarded to the 50 states district of columbia and u.s territories and the purpose of the specialty crop block grant program is to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops and we're going to kind of break down that definition a little bit more in the next slide so the specialty crop block grant program purpose is to enhance the competitiveness of u.s specialty crops by leveraging efforts to market and promote specialty crops assisting producers with research and development relevant to specialty crops expanding availability and access to specialty crops and addressing local regional and national challenges confronting specialty crop producers so as you can see there are a variety of different project types that kind of fall under this overall purpose of enhancing the competitiveness of u.s specialty crops to provide an overview of the program specifically specialty crops are defined in u.s statute as fruits and vegetables tree nuts dried fruits horticulture and nursery crops including flora culture this includes honey hops maple syrup mushrooms and christmas trees and specialty crop products are eligible processed products that consist of 50 of um eligible process products must consist of greater than 50 of the specialty crop by weight exclusive of added water for more information about the definition of specialty crops visit the agricultural marketing service website and we also have a link to this on the vermont specialty crop program website um this is a block grant program which um which means you know this is the block grants are awarded to state or local governments from the federal government with general guidelines as to how it should be spent and the implications for this program are that the grant applications and reports um are received by the agency of agriculture and there's you know internal processes that we do with those documents but ultimately applications and reports are approved by the federal government and then to kind of get down to the vermont specialty crop block grant program our program sub awards funds from this this block grant award to projects that enhance the competitiveness of vermont and regionally grown specialty crops so in other words vermont administers the federal dollars to projects that achieve this purpose so some quick facts about the program any entity may apply but all funded projects must benefit more than one specialty crop business individual or organization individual farms are encouraged to apply and collaborate as a group for example individual farms and businesses can partner with other growers or service providers and industry representatives such as uvm extension or a producer association to ensure that the benefit is being shared by multiple businesses or organizations and to be clear projects to establish or expand a single specialty crop business or organization are not eligible for funding through the specialty crop block grant program um available funds we anticipate awarding approximately two hundred thousand dollars in specialty crop block grant funds in 2021 no minimum or maximum reward for this grant program but successful proposals are often between fifteen thousand and thirty four thousand per year over the last five years we've competitively awarded individual product projects um ranging from seven thousand dollars to fifty two thousand dollars and the average award over this period was around 27 000 just to give some context there but there is no hard maximum or minimum the project length multi-year projects are eligible and projects can be funded for up to two and a half years or 30 months in like previously funded and multi-state projects just note that projects that build on a previous specialty crop block grant project will be asked to indicate in the application how the project for this application complements previous work and also describe the likelihood that the project will become self-sustaining in the future multi-state projects that address champ challenges and opportunities in in two or more states have a couple different options for how they can apply for specialty crop block grant funding one option is to submit a special crop application to each state where organization will serve as a project partner and then the other option is to apply to the specialty crop multi-state program and the agency of agriculture does not oversee the multi-state process but we can connect you to those people if that is of interest to you matching funds are required for this grant program all proposals must show matching funds equaling at least 50 percent of the grant request for example if a proposal has a request of ten thousand dollars in specialty crop funding an application must show a minimum of five thousand dollars in matching funds and under limited circumstances the match requirement may be reduced or waived for projects that justify a waiver um and those waiver requests must apply the impact of the project and indicate any special circumstance that justify this consideration matching funds can be any combination of cash or in-kind funds match can also be covered by unrecovered indirect costs indirect costs are also known as facilities and administration administrative costs and that's really only applicable for institutions like educational institutions or large non-profits that have high administrative costs and associated with doing business and indirect rates are written in policy happy to answer any other questions around that as well sorry i just skipped ahead um another note on matching funds is that matching funds may be used to ensure that all specialty crop block grant funds will enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops if for example there's a project that's marketing that involves both specialty crop and non-specialty crop businesses or farms so here's an example where a specialty crop could a project promote specialty crops through marketing agri-tourism um and if non-specialty crop farms make up 40 of the farms participating in the agri-tourism program then a 50 match would account for any benefit to the non-specialty crop farms um so that would just that's the matching funds can therefore just be a way to ensure that especially crop funding is being used to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops and not being used to enhance the competitiveness of other agricultural products or other types of businesses christina is there anything that you'd like to add on that i know that piece can be a little bit confusing sometimes yeah i think that we can um take questions on this after the presentation the one thing i will add around and maybe it's on the previous slide around the 50 match that that some folks can get um that can be a little confusing um 50 in this case really means that um you can think of your project as being funded in two-thirds like your overall project budget two-thirds of that would be contributed by the specialty crop block grant program if you submitted a successful application so that's kind of another way to think about 50 match so you this program would um fund you know for as the example here ten thousand dollars your match would need to be at least five thousand dollars so it's not a one-to-one match if you're asking for ten thousand dollars you don't need to show that you have ten thousand dollars in matching funds you only need to show that you have fifty percent of whatever your specialty call block camp program request is thanks christina yeah even i get confused by that sometimes with the sixty percent versus fifty percent um but yeah that was a helpful example right so a little bit more information on eligibility um eligible projects any entity may apply but the projects must benefit more than one specialty crop business organization or individual and applicants must describe how their project will benefit and produce measurable outcomes for specialty crop industries rather than a single business organization or individual and we encourage individual businesses organizations or individuals to collaborate with other industry representatives such as members of producer associations to ensure that each project will benefit multiple businesses and address specialty crop industry needs there's a list of producer associations available on our website if you'd like to get in touch with a producer association to find out if there's room for collaboration with other growers or with the association on a project that you might have in mind and then again just this note in bold here we already mentioned it but just to really hit this point home that the specialty crop block grant program is not a business development grant and can't be used to primarily benefit a single business but we do have other opportunities listed on our website and we're happy to share links to those resources either through our business development web page and then we also have also would encourage individual businesses to consider the working lands grant program or other business and technical assistance resources that we have posted there if you have questions about that feel free to reach out as well so um just to walk through some examples of eligible and ineligible projects um if a specialty crop organization requests funds to promote his organization this would be ineligible because the benefits are to one organization rather than multiple an example project where a grower requests funds to establish a new cooperative that will help other specialty crop producers diversify their operations and meet market demand that would be considered an eligible project because it's geared towards multiple producers a group request funds to launch a promotion campaign to increase awareness of vermont grown this project could be considered ineligible unless matching funds were used in the way that we described in in one of the previous slides so that matching funds could ensure that specialty crop funds will enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops rather than benefiting other non-specialty crop businesses or organizations this next one here is kind of a specification of the prior project proposal so a group requests funds to launch a promotional campaign to increase the sales of vermont grown pumpkins that would be eligible because they specified a specialty crop that that would be promoted we also have other resources on our website to kind of consider for eligible and eligible projects feel free to go to our program website and scroll all the way down to see the program history page and from there you can kind of click to see what are some of the most recent projects that have been funded and um as well as like some full final reports from previous projects i think i skipped this slide too so here are a few other examples um of eligible ineligible projects in case it's helpful um a specialty crop organization requests funds to promote its organization that would not be eligible um or an organization requests funds to conduct research on the feasibility of planting cultivating or growing a specialty crop in a particular area to share those results with growers throughout the state that would be eligible and that's the type of project that growers have led in the past around you know piloting a particular tool and then being able to within that project proposal is an outreach plan to get the word out there to ensure that the benefits are shared to growers across the state another example an organization requests funds to promote vermont specialty crops to new markets and access to these markets will benefit a variety of producers lastly a farm request funds to purchase equipment to expand production capacity this would be considered ineligible because the benefit is to primarily one business okay so um this is a usda funded program but the agency of agriculture in vermont has flexibility from usda on how to allocate um based around addressing local needs so this list here of state funding priorities is um generated in partnership with stakeholders from that represent various vermont specificity crop industries projects proposed projects should address issues facing specialty crop growers and just note that applicants in the pre-application and full application stage will need to select a fun opportunity to kind of focus their project around and applicants are encouraged to focus their application on just one of these um how many do we have seven one of these seven uh funding priorities um they can select more than one but we encourage folks to just focus on one and another option to consider as well and this is kind of outlined really clearly in the request for applications um applicants can also look to the farm-to-plate goals and indicators for strengthening vermont's food system as a way to kind of structure their project around what's been identified as a a goal for the state food system and feel free to reach out if you have any questions about these funding priorities or about how to select a funding priority that works best for your project okay so now we've made it on to the evaluation part of the discussion today so um because this is a usda program um just note that usda in order to you know report on the performance of this grant program at a federal level usda uses standardized metrics to evaluate grant program impact and performance to the office of management and budget and congress and these metrics are termed by usda ams as outcomes and indicators so we're going to be referring to those over the next few slides each funded proposal must include at least one of the eight specified outcome measures and at least one indicator that gives a quantifiable result and at the end of the projects ams will aggregate the data collected from vermont the various vermont projects along with all the projects coming from different states and u.s territories and and we'll use that aggregated data to report on the impact of the program so there are eight outcome measures in total and for the pre-application stage one outcome from this list of eight must be selected and i'm not going to read them all but they are available in the request for applications and they're also you know posted in the application itself part of the application will be selecting at least one of these one thing to note here is that outcome number one which is enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through increased sales this outcome is required it's the only one that's required for certain types of projects um for other types of projects that are not marketing and promotion focused um applicants can kind of select whatever outcome fits best for there for their project but this one is required for marketing and promotion projects and we'll and we'll get a little bit more into that detail in a couple of slides um these are the remaining of the eight outcome measures uh enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through mo e sustainable and diverse resilient crop systems et cetera around um marketing and promotion projects um so this is the outcome this is the one type of project that has a certain required outcome measure to be used and the focus is on efforts to um these projects can be defined as those that focus on efforts to sell advertise promote market and generate publicity attract new customers or raise customer awareness for specialty crops or especially crop venue and here is a list of a couple different types of marketing and promotion projects um could be website and or social media based promotion or development could be export market development farmers market promotions or marketing materials such as direct mail or brochures those would all count as marketing and promotion projects and therefore these types of projects are required to at least use one of the outcome and indicators which is around increased sales so the indicator for marketing and promotion projects is outcome one to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through increased sales and the indicator is to show over the course the project and the final report these projects will be required to share that sales increased from x to y over the course of the project and and what the percentage change is over that time um this requirement means that an established baseline of sales and dollars should already exist at the time of the application but for projects that don't already have that baseline of sales and dollars one of the project's objectives must be to determine a baseline in order to document sales increases by the end of the project um and of course keeping in mind that factors and events such as covid19 can either positively or negatively impact the sales of a project and that can all be explained in the performance report as context for those numbers um christine is there anything that you'd like to add on this indicator no i think i think that's a really great overview we're always happy to answer questions about um how developing that baseline might be part of your project if you um want to if you have a marketing and promotion project so it can be i it's hard to um there can be a lot of variables for individual projects so we're happy to talk those through thanks christina so um so as i mentioned earlier there are these eight outcome measures and outcomes um i think of them as like categories of indicator metrics um and so outcomes i think of the outcomes as kind of the category of metrics and then the indicator as this specific metric that will be used to evaluate program success but another way to think about it is that the outcome is the end goal and the indicator is how you show that you've gotten there and at the pre-application stage only one outcome must be selected but at the full application stage you'll be required to identify which specific metric you'll be tracking from this list of indicators so you could be listing for example outcome two indicator one b which would be to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through increased consumption and of the number of the blank total number of children and youth reached then you'd be required to report on the number that reported an intention to eat more specialty crops um but that's for the full application stage but just this is just to give you a sense of like how the outcomes and indicators work in relation to each other um christina anything to add yes so the two things that i will add here about working with indicators is first as gina mentioned you only need at a minimum one indicator per outcome so for example in outcome two there are four indicators you can choose one indicator that really best reflects the how to measure the success of your project or you could choose all four indicators but you're only required to have one um so you know some of the other indicators um like have eight or some of the other outcomes have like up to eight indicators you don't need if an indicator isn't applicable to your project you don't need to select it because that's not something that you can measure the indicator really needs to reflect what you can measure about your project success the second thing i will mention is that when you're looking at say for example outcome to indicator 4 the number of new specialty crops and or specialty crop products introduced to consumers that you can have a very successful project in the indicator there could be one and that doesn't sound like very much but if you're really focused on introducing a new specialty crop to consumers it's okay that your indicator is one because you've gone from zero to one and this is going to be aggregated at the national level so all of you all of your one one fantastic thing that you did will be combined with everybody else's across the country thanks christina that's really helpful yeah sometimes i think people feel there's a tendency for folks to select multiple indicators and um and yeah only one is required and also just keep in mind that whatever you choose you're going to be asked to report on for your interim reports as well as your final report so in your in your full application you'll have to kind of clarify how it is specifically that you're going to be tracking data for each one of those indicators so you don't want to necessarily have like 10 different indicators that you're tracking over the course of your project if there's really only one or two that that would for you kind of like capture indicate whether your project has accomplished its goals all right so um this is kind of more of a summary slide how to apply the pre-application deadline is march 1st 2021 at 4 30 p.m this is a two two stage application process for the specialty crop block grant program at both stages the applicant will need to apply through web grants which is the online grant management system that we use at the agency of agriculture a couple of notes all of this all of these items kind of summarize what's going to be required in that full application i mean in the pre-application um but we also encourage folks to thoroughly review the request for applications which details all the questions that you'll see when you log into web grants to start your application one thing to kind of call out from this list is the third bullet point here around describing the specialty craft stakeholders who support the project and explain why they support it this is a really critical component for this program and it's important that applicants have identified who those stakeholders are who will support the project um share whether or not the applicant has actually reached out to that stakeholder and and learned of their interest in supporting this project if it were to be funded um and then can also kind of articulate why it is that those stakeholders support this project that's an important part to this grant program so just kind of keep that in mind one other thing to note around that is that letters of support are not required at the pre-application stage so just kind of being able to write up like i've spoken to xyz people and these are the reasons why they support the project is going to be meaningful for the pre-application stage but we we aren't going to be reviewing letters of support at this stage in the full application stage at least one letter of support is required to demonstrate that partnership and support from external stakeholders um and then of course um [Music] one outcome measure must be chosen at the pre-application stage but an indicator is not required until the full application stage so just choose one of the eight that fits fast at this time and start thinking about like how you might be collecting data in preparation for that full application if if your application is invited to reapply and then one last thing to note here the last point about the estimated budget the estimated budget should include matching funds and that can be an estimate but when if your project is invited to submit a full application after the first round of review then just note that the total request can't be higher than the total budget that was presented in the pre-application stage so if your total budget was you know fifteen thousand dollars in the pre-application stage um and then the full application you've kind of like done some tweaking and adjusting you could move around between the different budget categories but but you can't request higher than fifteen thousand dollars in the full application stage and here's a little snapshot of what the budget grid will look like in web grants when you submit your application so this is around just the the general information that will be required and the stars here oh and there should also be a start here next to other um these are the different categories that you'll be required to provide a little bit more information on um just around uh what types of equipment you're looking to purchase um contractual costs what you're thinking about in that sense and then providing more specificity around the other category um and in the request for applications you'll see that the the definition for equipment is pretty specific so um kind of keep that in mind as well that um i think some things some things that we might think would count as equipment might actually be supplies and that would be for uh just to clarify in the moment um any equipment individual piece of equipment that costs more than five thousand dollar less than five thousand dollars would be considered a supply but if the per unit cost is more than five thousand dollars then we count as equipment so just if you can provide that additional information about it in the equipment description then we can kind of tease it out and say like oh is this actually a supply or is this an equipment cost when reviewers are looking at the applications right and so this is kind of the general timeline for the specialty crop block grant program as you can see it's oops it's um you know several several months are come in between the date that the request for application was released and the date that folks received received their final grant agreement which will be in october of 2021 um so you know the request for applications was released last week the pre-application deadline is march 1st and then applicants pre-application free applicants will be notified in mid-march the full application deadline is going to be in april the date is not is to be determined and that'll be for folks who were invited to reapply for the second round um applicant notification for final awards will happen in may and in june the agency of agriculture will have compiled all the full applications and have submitted that to usda for their final approval during that time or while usda is is working on providing us that final approval applicants or folks that are awarded pending awardees at that time will submit their documentation to the agency including certificate of insurance w-9 and a registration in the system for award management just can be found at sam.gov and then in towards the end of september usually around september 30th usda announces their final award and we get our award from usda at the end of september um and then october early october somewhere around october 1st folks receive their grant agreements one thing that i just wanted to note here is that um you know this is a really long timeline there are certain uh pre-award costs are an option for some folks if that's helpful to think about in terms of project planning there are conditions to that but usda has made it clear that we have up to 90 days prior to the start date of the grant agreement which is october 1st to provide um folks can spend on their projects before then if if that's necessary for their project success christine is there anything you'd like to add on this timeline or around pre-award costs yeah around the timeline is that we because this is a block grant program and we are making the evaluation decisions at the state level although it's a really long timeline we um we are are sharing with we can share with some confidence with a great deal of confidence when we submit our state plan at the end of may or the beginning of june depending on when usda sets their deadline this year that we want to find your project usda will review your project profile um that's what we call kind of your your application at that stage for eligibility and they may have follow-up questions but usda is not deciding whether they think your project is important enough to be funded we've already made that decision at the state level so it does take some time but once we submit our state plan you can generally feel confident that you know you are you're pending an award and we usually hear from usda if they have any questions or they need you to make any changes to your budget in july or august and so again you know you get kind of more information as the time progresses and acknowledging that you won't get your final award until october thanks christina all right and this is just a little preview snapshot of what our grants management system looks like which is what we'll use to submit your pre-application um it did web grants did recently get a facelift so if you've applied for agricultural development division grants in the past this might look a little bit new to you but the system is hopefully just a little bit more user friendly with this upgrade so that's good news um one thing to note that's new about the system now is that new users have always needed to register and that's what this little red circle here indicates if you haven't applied for an app if you haven't created an account in web grants before you will need to register by clicking that yellow bar there but please note that new registrations are now being approved by our office so be sure to get started in web grants at least one to two business days prior to the application deadline to make sure that there's ample time for folks on our staff to go in and review registration and approve them um another thing to note about this web grant system is that um there are detailed step-by-step kind of like um photo walkthroughs of how to submit an application for this grant program available on our program website um so that's definitely there to help you out and christina actually made them so thank you christina for creating that resource for applicants i made the earlier version diana ferguson can take credit for the up to the updated version yeah but i'll just i'll just you know reiterate that you can register at any time so you don't need to to wait till you're ready to submit your application to register you can register now take a look at the application i'll make sure you understand where everything goes and you know save some information and go back to it later so definitely register far in advance thanks christina and we have a link to register on the website and it's in in the rfa as well of course all right so just to summarize what we've talked about today thanks everyone for your patience for the last 40 minutes looking at slide shows the top five things to know about this program are just a quick reminder that projects must demonstrate partnership and collaboration to address the needs of multiple multiple specialty crop businesses organizations and stakeholders projects to establish or expand a single business specialty crop business are not eligible for funding all projects must include an outreach plan to ensure that the results of the project are shared with especially crop industry and standardized metrics are used to evaluate program success so we encourage folks start small with one key metric or indicator and develop a realistic evaluation and data collection plan around that metric and then finally a reminder about the pre-application deadline of march 1st at 4 30 pm and encouragement to register early and entities get familiar with the system earlier as well all right so now i think we can kind of open it up for questions and then just another note here on this page you'll see the link to our program website agriculture.vermont.gov grants specialty crop that's where you can find um a lot of really important information for applying including the request for applications whi h we encourage you to download and read thoroughly the request for applications includes you know evaluation criteria as well as a list of all the questions that you'll see when you open up the online application and clarifies different types of the specifics of how federal specialty crops funding can be used um to support these projects and then of course there's also the how to apply step-by-step guidance for how to use web grants and you can also find a list of all our previously funded projects on there so there's a lot of great info and this webinar will be recorded and posted there as well so encourage you to check it out if you have questions feel free to reach christina and i at the shared inbox which is hgr.specialtycrops at vermont.gov you can also feel free to give me a call at 802 585-6225 any any questions from the group feel free to drop them into the chat or um or raise your hand or just unmute yourself if you are having trouble unmuting press star six to unmute looks like we do have one question in the chat so far could you define or describe the differences between partners and stakeholders with some examples great question um i'll take her first stab at it christina but i i might ask for you to back me up so um i think what we're looking for when it comes to partners would be someone who's collaborating on the project directly putting in some kind of work or contribution into making it happen versus a stakeholder might be someone who would just benefit from the project stakeholder would be much more broad it could it could be a partner as well could be a stakeholder but not all stakeholders would be partners and a stakeholder could be as broad as a group of farmers or a farmer who could potentially benefit from the project that you're putting forward stakeholder could also be the general public if if what you're doing is going to create some some value for the general public as well yeah that's a great overview and i i really um i think that the key difference is that a partner is an organization or an individual that is helping you to do the work of the project so an example might be a project that we awarded last year it's a partnership between vital communities and the northeast farming association of vermont nofa vt so nope vt is the was the applicant but they are partnering with vital communities to complete the work that is going to benefit a much broader array of stakeholders including organic vegetable and fruit growers any other questions trying to think of other questions that come up frequently maybe you did you did an excellent job christina there were a couple things that came in through with the registration form so i'm just going to see if there's anything in there that might be applicable to a broader group um and i don't know if these people are on the call so i don't know if it's helpful but someone wrote we are just getting our farm established primarily we are a fiber farm looking to gain an understanding into crops and what crops to grow would this be a good place to start and i think our answer to that question would be it could be a place to start in terms of looking for what different projects are happening but unfortunately this wouldn't be a great fit for a funding opportunity to help get a farm business started there might be other business or technical assistance options that would be more applicable and we can drop a link in the chat to our business development page which lists some different business and technical assistance options as well as um like loans and financing opportunities as well all right so i see a question here from giovanna asking are all the indicators and sub-measures listed in the rfp yes they are they are listed there in their entirety so yeah we encourage folks to take a look there tina asked if we're not sure which outcome is most suited to a project can we run it by you in the future yes definitely happy to um talk to you about which outcome might work best um yeah and i i do think that like the indi christina be curious what your thoughts on it my thought is like the indicator is really like the super important part that you'll want to figure out just in terms of how you're actually going to be measuring your project success um rather than spending a ton of time trying to get the perfect outcome what do you think christina yeah and um you know really when you're looking at your outcomes and indicators it's good to kind of think back to the purpose of your project and um i don't really identify what issue project or need for a specialty crop industry or sector you're hoping to address with your project and that can often lead you to the right outcome measure and those indicators that will show how you're going to measure the thanks project james has a question about considering a cooperative to export maple syrup there also is money to support cooperatives by another organization um so how to avoid issues from double dipping so that's something that you would explain in your budget where you would show which what the specialty cup funds that you are applying for would be used for and in your match that would be an example a great example of match what parts of your overall project budget would be funded by another organization so there isn't any issue with you having more than one source of funding for your project that's great you would just want to be clear about what specialty crop funds specifically were being used for thanks christina so evelyn asked could you discuss options for business development grants specifically interested in best options for equipment purchasing assistance um i think i'm i'm curious christina um and i know ali is also on the call another one of our colleagues i think we've been working with kind of summarizing what all of the what which grant programs at the agency might be the best fit my initial thoughts would be to consider the working lands grant program that grant can definitely be used to purchase equipment and then other options might be um there are a couple different water quality equipment grant programs um thanks christina for dropping the link to the agency of agriculture grants on our website we also have if you go to that business planning and assistance page and then you look to grants and financial assistance those are different financial assistance options that are hosted by other organizations beyond the agency of agriculture so if you don't find the right fit at the agency of agriculture website link that christina dropped this grants and financial assistance page might have something that you're looking for oh perfect there's the other the other link there thanks christina and then there's also a loans and financing link in that menu as well thanks for that question evelyn just gonna see if there's anything else that was dropped in the registration form um uh luigi from vermont elderberry asked is there a gross sales revenue minimum for producers the answer would be no there's not a gross sales revenue minimum for this grant program thanks lindsay um we've got another question in the registration form we are interested in applying for grant funding to upgrade our honey extraction storage area we are also looking for grant funding to upgrade our wheat drying and storage systems and to create a wheat cleaning milling facility for organic wheat and unfortunately projects to invest in one business zone expansion or development would not be eligible for the specialty crop block grant program as this grant program is more focused on strengthening the broader industry for more long-term viability into the future and as a whole this project sounds very exciting to me but unfortunately wheat is also not a specialty crop thanks christina all right if there aren't any other questions i think we can wrap up and i'll i can send a link to this recording once we have it up on the website for everyone who registered for the meeting thank you so much for joining us and thank you gina for leading us through this presentation and q a thanks christina and thank you all for joining feel free to follow up with any questions over email or phone call as well thank you you