Making the first cut, Pear Bureau Northwest
The Pear Bureau, along with your other commodity commissions and organizations, participates in a variety of competitive grant programs helping to leverage grower funds and increase consumption, awareness, and sales domestically and around the world. We just learned that we made the first cut in two specialty crop state block grant proposals geared to increasing consumption in overseas markets. The proposals will now compete in the final funding round.
The first is a Pear Road Show in four of the major cities in Mexico. This will be a mobile, interactive learning center for all consumers to taste, touch, feel, and learn everything about pears in fun, entertaining, and interactive ways. It will also be a health and nutrition classroom for adults and kids where nutritionists will talk to consumers about the importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle as well as eating more fresh produce like pears. This is a two-state project supported by block grant funds in Washington and Oregon, for a total funding request of $200,000 between both states.
The second project, a joint promotion with the Washington Apple Commission and Washington State Fruit Commission, also has a $200,000 funding request. This activity, entitled Healthy Fruits for Healthy Families, will be conducted in Taiwan. Tactics will include in-store promotions and nutrition workshops supported by custom Point of Sale materials and in-store radio advertisements to educate consumers about the health benefits of eating northwest pears, apples, and cherries.
Competitive grant programs such as the Specialty Crop State Block Grants, the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops and the Market Access Program have been funded through the USDA’s Farm Bill. By successfully tapping into these programs, we are able to leverage and stretch our budgets to help access new markets and develop current markets, as well as fund research and develop tools such as the grower videos posted on our Web site, usapears.org.
Over the life of these competitive programs, we have successfully captured over $40 million in government grant funding. We hope to add these two new state block grants to that list.
All pears, all the time.
Kevin
Email
Print
Feed
To encourage an open exchange of useful information, we welcome comments from readers. We reserve the right to remove all or any language deemed potentially libelous. Comments do not represent the views of goodfruit.com and are not an endorsement or guarantee of accuracy.