Puerto Rico State Office

Description

The Mission of the Plant Materials Program is the development and delivery of plant science technology to meet the Nation’s natural resources conservation needs to find plant solutions to solve conservation problems. The purpose of Plant Materials Program is to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies, while leveraging the Federal investment in environmental enhancement and protection in conjunction with agricultural production. Plant Materials projects are expected to lead to the transfer of conservation technologies, management systems, and innovative approaches into NRCS policy, technical manuals, guides, and references, or to the private sector. Applications will be evaluated by NRCS staff under the bulleted topic (see section I.D). Applications will be screened for completeness and compliance with the provisions of this notice. Incomplete applications will be eliminated from competition, and notification of elimination will be mailed to the applicant. NRCS will accept applications for single or multi-year projects, not to exceed 3 years, submitted to NRCS from eligible entities including federally recognized Indian tribes, State and local units of government, and non-governmental organizations and individuals. Applications are accepted from the USDA Caribbean Area: Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands only. Complete applications received by the deadline will be evaluated by a technical peer review panel based on the Criteria for Application Evaluation identified in the application instructions in section V.B. Proposal applications, along with their associated technical peer review, will be forwarded to the Review Board. The Review Board will make recommendations for project approval to the Caribbean Area NRCS Director who will make the final selections. Plant Materials Conservation Projects or Activities The proposed project must encompass the development, field observation, validation, implementation, and monitoring of: •Conservation adoption approaches; or •Promising conservation technologies, practices, systems, procedures, or approaches; or •Environmental soundness with goals of environmental protection and natural resource enhancement.

Who can apply

• State governments
• County governments
• City or township governments
• Private institutions of higher education
• Individuals

Contact

JAIME VALENTIN <br/>PLANTS & MATERIAL MANAGER <br/>Phone 787-766-5206 xt 121
jaime.valentin@pr.usda.gov