Solicitation of Commodity Board Topics and Contribution of Funding Under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program

NIFA is soliciting topics from eligible commodity board entities (Federal and State- level commodity boards, as defined below) that the entities are willing to co-fund equally with NIFA. To be considered for inclusion in future Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) competitive grants program Requests for Applications (RFAs), topics must relate to the established priority areas of AFRI. Commodity boards are those entities established under a commodity promotion law, as such term is defined under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, or a State commodity board or other equivalent State entity. See the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this Notice under the heading ``Eligibility for Submitting Topics'' for further information. If, after NIFA's evaluation, proposed topics are accepted for inclusion, they will be incorporated into AFRI competitive grants program RFAs. As a condition of funding grants pertaining to a topic, NIFA will require an agreement with the commodity board to provide funds equal to the amount NIFA is contributing under the agreed upon topic. This Notice invites topic submissions from commodity boards as defined above, outlines the process NIFA will use to evaluate the appropriateness of these topics for inclusion in AFRI RFAs, and describes the commitment required of commodity boards for NIFA to jointly fund competitively selected AFRI awards within a topic area submitted by the commodity boards.