47286 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 161 / Tuesday, August 24, 2021 / Notices 

https://www.ocio.usda.gov/document/ 

ad-3027, from any USDA office, by 

calling (866) 632–9992, or by writing a 

letter addressed to USDA. The letter 

must contain the complainant’s name, 

address, telephone number, and a 

written description of the alleged 

discriminatory action in sufficient detail 

to inform the Assistant Secretary for 

Civil Rights (ASCR) about the nature 

and date of an alleged civil rights 

violation. The completed AD–3027 form 

or letter must be submitted to USDA by: 

(1) Mail: U.S. Department of 

Agriculture, Office of the Assistant 

Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 

Independence Avenue SW, Washington, 

DC 20250–9410; or 

(2) Fax: (833) 256–1665 or (202) 690– 

7442; or 

(3) Email: program.intake@usda.gov. 

USDA is an equal opportunity 

provider, employer, and lender. 

Karama Neal, 

Administrator, Rural Business-Cooperative 

Service. 

[FR Doc. 2021–18136 Filed 8–23–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3410–15–P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Rural Business-Cooperative Service 

[Docket No. RBS–21–BUSINESS–0013] 

Stakeholder Listening Sessions and 

Request for Information on the 

Agriculture Innovation Center 

Demonstration Program 

AGENCY: Rural Business-Cooperative 

Service, Department of Agriculture 

(USDA). 

ACTION: Request for information. 

SUMMARY: The Rural BusinessCooperative Service (RBCS) is hosting a 

listening session and opening a request 

for information for public input about 

the Agriculture Innovation Center 

Demonstration (AIC) Program. The AIC 

program provides grants to Centers that 

provide services to agricultural 

producers to assist them with marketing 

value-added agricultural products. 

RBCS is currently considering how it 

can streamline the application process, 

clarify eligibility requirements and 

reduce the burden for meeting them, 

revise the merit review process, and 

assess the program’s performance. 

DATES: The listening session will be 

held virtually on: October 5 at 2 p.m.– 

4:00 p.m. ET; https://

attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/ 

3831947973149428235. 

Comments must be submitted by 

11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) 

on https://www.regulations.gov. 

ADDRESSES: Federal eRulemaking Portal: 

Go to https://www.regulations.gov and, 

in the ‘‘Search’’ box, type in the Docket 

No. RBS–21–BUSINESS–0013. A link to 

the Notice will appear. You may submit 

a comment here by selecting the 

‘‘Comment’’ button or you can access 

the ‘‘Docket’’ tab, select the ‘‘Notice,’’ 

and go to the ‘‘Browse & Comment on 

Documents’’ Tab. Here you may view 

comments that have been submitted as 

well as submit a comment. To submit a 

comment, select the ‘‘comment’’ button, 

complete the required information, and 

select the ‘‘Submit Comment’’ button at 

the bottom. Information on using 

Regulations.gov, including instructions 

for accessing documents, submitting 

comments, and viewing the docket after 

the close of the comment period, is 

available through the site’s ‘‘FAQ’’ link 

at the bottom. Comments on this 

information collection must be received 

by October 25, 2021. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Gail 

Thuner, Grants Division, Cooperative 

Programs, Rural Business-Cooperative 

Service, United States Department of 

Agriculture, 1400 Independence Avenue 

SW, MS 3201, Room 5803—South, 

Washington, DC 20250–3250, or call 

202–720–1400, or email cpgrants@

wdc.usda.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Overview of AIC 

The AIC Program was authorized in 

Section 6402 of the 2002 Farm Bill (Pub. 

L. 107–171), as amended by Section 

7608 of the 2018 Farm Bill (Pub. L. 115– 

334). Terms you need to understand are 

defined in 7 CFR 4284.3 and 4284.1004. 

The intent of AIC is to provide technical 

assistance to agricultural producers to 

help them market value-added 

agricultural products. 

The program currently awards grants 

of up to $1,000,000 to Centers that can 

provide at least one-third of the project 

costs in matching funds and who have 

the capability to provide services to 

agricultural producers to assist them 

with marketing value-added agricultural 

products. The types of services that can 

be provided include: 

• Financial advisory services related to 

the development, expansion, or 

operation of business owned by an 

agricultural producer(s) that will 

produce a value-added agricultural 

product, as long as the assistance is 

not to support forming a joint 

marketing effort by a group of 

producers, such as a farmers 

market, roadside stand, communitysupported agriculture, and online 

sales 

• Process development services, 

including: 

Æ Engineering services including 

scale-up of production systems (not 

to include cost of renovating or 

constructing a facility or system) 

Æ Scale production assessments, 

defined as studies that analyze 

facilities, including processing 

facilities, for potential value-added 

activities to determine the size that 

optimizes construction and other 

cost efficiencies 

Æ Systems development 

Æ Other technical assistance and 

applied research related to 

development, implementation, 

improvement and operations of 

processes and systems to produce 

and market a value-added 

agricultural product 

• Organizational assistance, including 

legal and technical advisory 

services related to the development, 

expansion, or operation of a 

business owned by an agricultural 

producer(s) that will produce a 

value-added agricultural product, as 

long as this assistance is not 

provided to support forming a joint 

marketing effort of food and food 

products by a group of producers, 

such as a farmers market, roadside 

stand, community-supported 

agriculture, and online sales 

• Outreach assistance, limited to 

assistance with connecting an 

agricultural producer to a 

distribution system, processing 

facility, or commercial kitchen 

• Technical assistance for product 

development (excluding R&D), 

where product development has the 

following definition: Stages 

involved in bringing a product from 

idea or concept through 

commercial-scale production, 

including concept testing, 

feasibility and cost analysis, 

product taste-testing, demographic 

and other types of consumer 

analysis, production analysis, and 

evaluation of packaging and 

labeling options 

• Grants of $5,000 or less to agricultural 

producers for the above services 

• Costs associated with establishing and 

operating a Center, such as legal 

services, accounting services, 

clerical assistance, technical 

services, hiring employees, 

monitoring contracts, and Board of 

Director travel 

Centers may also use their matching 

funds to provide the following services: 

• Business development services, such 

as feasibility studies, business plans, 

and other types of technical assistance 


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and applied research that support 

business development, including 

support to forming a joint marketing 

effort by a group of producers, such as 

a farmers market, roadside stand, 

community-supported agriculture, 

and online sales 

• Market development and outreach 

services, such as marketing plans, 

branding, and customer identification 

including support to forming a joint 

marketing effort by a group of 

producers, such as a farmers market, 

roadside stand, community-supported 

agriculture, and online sales 

Grants may be made to local 

governments, State governments, 

Federally-Recognized Tribes, 

institutions of higher education, 

nonprofit corporations, and for-profit 

corporations. Individuals are not 

eligible to apply. Note that applicant 

organizations must be prepared to act as 

Centers to provide Producer Services. 

Grant awards are not made directly to 

businesses or agricultural producers to 

market value-added products. 

This notice and listening session 

requests information on RBCS’ plan to 

consider ways to streamline the 

application process, clarify eligibility 

requirements and reduce the burden for 

meeting them, revise the merit review 

process, and assess program 

performance. The public input provided 

in response to this notice from 

interested stakeholders will advise 

RBCS on this plan. 

Instructions 

Response to this notice is voluntary. 

Each individual or institution is 

requested to submit only one response 

as directed in the ADDRESSES section of 

this notice. Submissions must not 

exceed 10 pages and fonts must be 12 

point or larger, with a page number 

provided on each page. Responses 

should include the name of the 

person(s) or organization(s) filing the 

comment. Comments containing 

references, studies, research, and other 

empirical data that are not widely 

published should include copies or 

electronic links of the referenced 

materials. Comments containing 

profanity, vulgarity, threats, or other 

inappropriate language or content will 

not be considered. Comments submitted 

in response to this notice are subject to 

disclosure under the Freedom of 

Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552). 

Responses to this notice may also be 

posted, without change, on a Federal 

website. 

Therefore, we request that no business 

proprietary information, copyrighted 

information, or personally identifiable 

information be submitted in response to 

this notice. In accordance with FAR 52– 

215–3(b) responses to this notice are not 

offers and cannot be accepted by the 

Government to form a binding contract. 

Additionally, the U.S. Government will 

not pay for response preparation or for 

the use of any information contained in 

the response. 

To inform the Federal government’s 

decision-making process, RBCS now 

seeks public input on the following 

questions: 

1. RBCS is seeking feedback on the 

definitions needed to assist applicants 

and recipients with understanding 

program requirements. 

a. Are there any additional terms that 

we could define to improve applicant 

and/or recipient understanding of the 

program requirements? 

b. Applicants are required to 

demonstrate that the Center’s Board of 

Directors has representatives from the 

two general agricultural organizations in 

the State with the greatest number of 

members. How should we define a 

general agricultural organization? 

c. Applicants are required to 

demonstrate that the Center’s Board of 

Directors has representatives from four 

entities representing commodities. How 

should we define these types of 

organizations? 

d. Product development is not 

identified in the authorizing statute for 

the program as an eligible use of funds. 

However, RBCS has previously 

determined that many components of 

product development are allowable 

because those components are related to 

the types of services that are eligible for 

the program. If RBCS continues to allow 

product development as an eligible use 

of funds, how should we define it? 

2. RBCS is seeking feedback on how 

applicants can demonstrate that they 

meet the eligibility requirements for the 

program. Most of the requirements 

listed below are statutory, so they 

cannot be changed, but we can consider 

alternatives to how and when we ask 

applicants to demonstrate that they 

meet them. 

a. The authorizing statute requires 

that eligible applicants have provided 

Producer Services. How can applicants 

demonstrate that they meet this 

requirement? How many years of 

experience are appropriate to show that 

an organization has experience in 

providing Producer Services? Note that 

Producer Services is currently defined 

at 7 CFR 4284.1004. 

b. The authorizing statute for the 

program requires that applicants that do 

not have experience in providing 

Producer Services demonstrate their 

capability to provide Producer Services. 

How can these applicants demonstrate 

their capability? 

c. The authorizing statute requires 

that an eligible applicant outlines the 

support for the entity in the agricultural 

community. How can applicants 

demonstrate that they meet this 

requirement? 

d. The authorizing statute requires 

that an eligible applicant outlines a plan 

that describes the technical and other 

expertise of the entity. How do you 

think this technical and other expertise 

is different from demonstrating 

experience in providing Producer 

Services or the capability to provide 

Producer Services? How can applicants 

demonstrate that they meet this 

requirement? 

e. All types of organizations are 

eligible to apply for the AIC program. 

However, these organizations still need 

to demonstrate that they are legal 

entities that are authorized to receive an 

award. How can applicants demonstrate 

that they meet this requirement? 

f. The authorizing statute requires that 

a Center has a Board of Directors that 

includes representatives from the 

following organizations: 

• General agricultural organizations 

with the greatest and second greatest 

number of members in the State in 

which the eligible entity is located; 

• The department of agriculture, or 

similar State department or agency or a 

State legislator, of the State in which the 

eligible entity is located; and 

• Four entities representing 

commodities produced in the State. 

How can applicants demonstrate that 

they meet this requirement? 

g. The authorizing statute requires 

that the Center has its own Board of 

Directors. What should the role of the 

Board of Directors be? 

h. The program has previously 

required applicants to provide certain 

financial information, such as financial 

statements and audits, so that RBCS 

could assess the applicant’s financial 

capability to administer the funds as 

well as meet the requirement 

established by 2 CFR 200.206 to conduct 

a risk evaluation. What criteria, 

information, or threshold should RBCS 

consider when assessing the financial 

capabilities of an applicant? 

3. RBCS is seeking feedback on 

project eligibility requirements. Some of 

these requirements are statutory, while 

others are targeted toward improving 

the project’s chances of success. 

a. The statute does not define a 

minimum or maximum period of 

performance. Based on previous 

experiences with recipients, RBCS has 

discovered that first-time recipients 

need much more than a one-year period 


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47288 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 161 / Tuesday, August 24, 2021 / Notices 

of performance for the first award and 

set the period of performance at two 

years to allow these recipients the time 

needed to establish their Centers. What 

should the period of performance be for 

first-time recipients? What should it be 

for recipients that have established 

Centers? 

b. The statute establishes a maximum 

award of $1,000,000, but it does not 

establish a minimum award. In the 

previous year, RBCS set a minimum 

award size of $500,000, with the 

expectation that all recipients would 

have funding for a two-year period of 

performance. Given a two-year period of 

performance, what should the minimum 

award be? What should the minimum 

award be if the period of performance is 

only one year? 

c. The authorizing statute requires 

applications to include goals for 

increasing and improving the ability of 

local agricultural producers to develop 

markets and processes for value-added 

agricultural products. Note that the 

Value-Added Producer Grant Program 

currently defines a Locally-Produced 

Agricultural Food Product in 7 CFR 

4284.902. Should the AIC program be 

consistent with this definition with 

respect to considering the service area of 

Centers? If not, what should be 

considered local for AIC Centers? 

Should all project funds be required to 

be spent on assistance to local 

agricultural producers? If not, what 

percentage or share of the project should 

be dedicated to local producers versus 

producers that are not local? 

4. RBCS seeks feedback on the types 

of services that Centers can provide. The 

current regulation restricts the use of 

funds to the types of assistance defined 

as Producer Services (see 7 CFR 

4284.1004). Producer Services include 

assistance such as business 

development services, process 

development services (e.g., engineering 

studies and scale production 

assessments), marketing assistance, 

product development, financial 

advisory services, and legal advisory 

services. We do have a small amount of 

discretion to expand this definition to 

include related types of assistance. 

What types of assistance should be 

provided by Centers to agricultural 

producers? Note that all assistance 

provided must be for the purpose of 

helping the producer market a valueadded agricultural product. Assistance 

cannot be provided to other types of 

entities, such as retailers, distributors, 

processors, or customers. 

5. RBCS seeks feedback on when the 

application deadline for the program 

should be. It is our intention to have a 

consistent deadline from year to year. 

This deadline must be set to allow 

sufficient time for processing 

applications in order to make awards 

prior to September 30 each year. If 

application requirements are 

streamlined or less burdensome, the 

burden on applicants selected for an 

award may increase because supporting 

documentation will be supplied at the 

award stage rather than the application 

stage. This approach would result in 

less time processing applications but 

more time processing awards. 

6. RBCS is seeking feedback on the 

merit review process. The authorizing 

statute does not identify any criteria that 

RBCS must use as part of its merit 

review process. However, the statute 

does require a competitive process, and 

2 CFR 200.205 also requires a merit 

review. What criteria should RBCS use 

to identify projects that best fit the 

purpose of the program and have the 

greatest chance of success? Should these 

criteria be objective, subjective, or a mix 

of both? What type of reviewers should 

RBCS use to evaluate the merit of 

proposed projects? Should the RBCS 

Administrator have discretion to award 

additional points based on geography, 

Agency priorities, or other factors? 

7. RBCS is seeking feedback on the 

award process. The authorizing statute 

requires an annual competitive process 

to make awards. However, we are 

exploring options to minimize the 

burden of running a nationwide 

competition every year, given the 

limited number of awards that we can 

make as well as the larger scope of the 

projects funded. These options include, 

but are not limited to, multi-year 

periods of performance, renewals for 

recipients that are performing 

satisfactorily, and competitions limited 

to existing recipients. Would the use of 

any of these options (or alternatives) 

reduce the burden for the program, 

streamline the application process, or 

improve the success of the program? 

8. RBCS is seeking feedback on how 

the program’s performance should be 

assessed. As stated above, the purpose 

of the program is to provide services to 

agricultural producers to assist them 

with marketing value-added agricultural 

products. The required goals of 

recipients must include increasing and 

improving the ability of local 

agricultural producers to develop 

markets and processes for value-added 

agricultural products. Given this 

purpose and these goals, what 

performance measures should be 

established for the program? How 

should they be measured? 

Non-Discrimination Statement 

In accordance with Federal civil 

rights laws and U.S. Department of 

Agriculture (USDA) civil rights 

regulations and policies, the USDA, its 

Mission Areas, agencies, staff offices, 

employees, and institutions 

participating in or administering USDA 

programs are prohibited from 

discriminating based on race, color, 

national origin, religion, sex, gender 

identity (including gender expression), 

sexual orientation, disability, age, 

marital status, family/parental status, 

income derived from a public assistance 

program, political beliefs, or reprisal or 

retaliation for prior civil rights activity, 

in any program or activity conducted or 

funded by USDA (not all bases apply to 

all programs). Remedies and complaint 

filing deadlines vary by program or 

incident. 

Program information may be made 

available in languages other than 

English. Persons with disabilities who 

require alternative means of 

communication to obtain program 

information (e.g., Braille, large print, 

audiotape, American Sign Language) 

should contact the responsible Mission 

Area, agency, or staff office; the USDA 

TARGET Center at (202) 720–2600 

(voice and TTY); or the Federal Relay 

Service at (800) 877–8339. 

To file a program discrimination 

complaint, a complainant should 

complete a Form AD–3027, USDA 

Program Discrimination Complaint 

Form, which can be obtained online at 

https://www.ocio.usda.gov/document/ 

ad-3027, from any USDA office, by 

calling (866) 632–9992, or by writing a 

letter addressed to USDA. The letter 

must contain the complainant’s name, 

address, telephone number, and a 

written description of the alleged 

discriminatory action in sufficient detail 

to inform the Assistant Secretary for 

Civil Rights (ASCR) about the nature 

and date of an alleged civil rights 

violation. The completed AD–3027 form 

or letter must be submitted to USDA by: 

(1) Mail: U.S. Department of 

Agriculture, Office of the Assistant 

Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 

Independence Avenue SW, Washington, 

DC 20250–9410; or 

(2) Fax: (833) 256–1665 or (202) 690– 

7442; or 

(3) Email: program.intake@usda.gov. 

Karama Neal, 

Administrator, Rural Business-Cooperative 

Service. 

[FR Doc. 2021–18134 Filed 8–23–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3410–15–P 


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