Micro-grants for Food Security (MGFSP FY23)

The Hawaii State Department of Agriculture (HDOA) will administer a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process to award federal funds for proposals to increase the quantity and quality of locally grown food in food insecure communities that import a significant quantity of food. Activities funded by the Micro-Grants for Food Security Program (MGFSP) may include small-scale gardening, small-scale herding and livestock operations and expanding access to food and food knowledge of food security through competitive distribution of subawards to eligible entities. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Act), signed on December 20, 2018, authorized the program and will remain in force through 2023. The MGFSP is administered by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), which is required to report on the outcomes of the program at a national scale to demonstrate the performance of the program. The HDOA will report on the outcomes of the Hawaii projects to the USDA AMS. Awards will be made to eligible entities as described in Section II. Eligible Entities in amounts not to exceed $10,000 for eligible organizations for a period that shall not exceed one year in length, and a 10% cash match is required. Projects of less than 12 months will be prorated. For a project that will be completed in six months, the maximum award will be $5,000 for an organization. In this RFP, the HDOA will award a maximum of 10 projects.