This bill directs the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish within USDA a stand-alone competitive research and extension grant program to increase the competitiveness of specialty crops in the United States through the advancement and acceleration of mechanization and automation. Specialty crops are fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, and horticulture and nursery crops (including floriculture).
The bill provides specified funds for FY2024 and each succeeding year to carry out the program.
The grant program includes projects that
create or improve cost-effective technologies to reduce a specialty crop grower's manual labor requirements and increase the efficiency of crop production, resource management, harvesting, processing, post-harvest technologies, and packaging;
increase adoption of mechanization and automation technologies; and
accelerate automation and mechanization through prototype development, in-field trial testing, ongoing industry engagement, and rapid commercialization.
Entities eligible for the grant program are federal agencies, national laboratories, colleges and universities, research institutions and organizations, private organizations and corporations, state agricultural experiment stations, individuals, and organizations representing specialty crop growers.
