Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC) Program Deadline Jan. 8, 2025
There is a new program from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) through which any farmer growing specialty crops in 2025 is eligible for funding to help get these crops to market. The application period closes by the end of day on January 8, 2025.
The new program is called Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC) and provides financial assistance to specialty crop producers to help them expand domestic markets or develop new markets for their crops.
Type of Support
Funds are available to assist specialty crop producers meet higher marketing costs related to:
- Perishability of specialty crops
- Specialized handling and transport equipment
- Packaging to prevent damage
- Moving perishables to market quickly
- Higher labor costs
Who Is Eligible
MASC covers the following commercially marketed specialty crops grown in the US:
- Fruits (fresh, dried)
- Vegetables (including dry edible beans and peas, mushrooms, and vegetable seed)
- Tree nuts
- Nursery crops, Christmas trees, and floriculture
- Culinary and medicinal herbs and spices
- Honey, hops, maple sap, tea, turfgrass, and grass seed
Common examples of specialty crops can be found on USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service’s specialty crop definition webpage.
Most growers will be eligible. Eligible producers or legal entities must:
- Have an average adjusted gross income (AGI) of less than $900,000 for tax years 2021, 2022, and 2023, unless the producer or legal entity’s average adjusted gross farm income is at least 75 percent of their average AGI
- Be in the business of producing a specialty crop at the time of application and be entitled to an ownership share and share in the risk of producing a specialty crop that will be sold in calendar year 2025
- Be a U.S. citizen, resident alien, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, or other organizational structure organized under state law, Indian Tribe or Tribal Organization, or a foreign person or foreign entity who meets certain eligibility requirements
- Comply with the provisions of the “Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation” regulations, often called the conservation compliance provisions
- Not have a controlled substance violation
Here is the website to learn more: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/resources/programs/marketing-assistance-specialty-crops-masc