TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced late last month awards worth more than $1.2 million in the form of specialty crop block grants, a federal program administered by the USDA through the states.

“My administration is committed to supporting Michigan’s rich food and agriculture sector,” Whitmer said in an announcement Oct. 27. “These federal dollars will directly allow these recipients to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops, promote the expansion of value-added agriculture production within Michigan, and support our rural communities. I appreciate both USDA’s and Sen. (Debbie) Stabenow’s leadership and partnership to grow Michigan’s farmers and vibrant specialty crop industry.”

Stabenow(D-Mich.) helped to get a specialty crop title added to the Farm Bill, which raised the profile of specialty crops nationwide. Specialty crops are defined by the USDA as fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture.

Twelve grants were awarded to businesses and organizations this year in the state. Recipients included the Michigan Apple Committee and Cherry Marketing Institute, which received $125,000 apiece to promote their crops. Although grant projects are often related to product marketing and outreach, grants are also sometimes used to help combat farm pests. The Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association, for example, received a grant of $100,000 for a project called Top Ten Michigan Nursery Weeds: Optimum Controls in Michigan New Crops.

“Our key stakeholders have been really challenged by an insect called spotted wing Drosophila. SWD is a tiny fruit fly that comes from Asia, and what it does is it lays an egg inside the fruit; it really likes things that are soft fleshed,” said Nikki Rothwell, a Michigan State University extension specialist. “Blueberries and cherries have been really impacted. We’ve used some of these block grants to help our growers combat SWD. It gave us an opportunity to help us think outside the box on controlling this insect, besides just using chemicals.”

One of the things growers have tried, for instance, is to use lures that trick the male fruit fly into trying to mate out of season, causing it to waste its effort.  

“The greatest effect of these block grants has been that it’s enabled us to reach out and do promotion that we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” said Don Gregory, one of the principals of Shoreline Fruit, a major cherry grower in northern Michigan. “We have used these dollars for the ‘b to b’ or business to business part of our program, trying to promote Michigan cherries with people who make cherry products. We would not have been able to do that these past couple of years without those dollars, since we’ve had such small crops.”

According to the USDA, these grants focus on training and certification programs, food safety, pest control and plant health safety for specialty crops in addition to marketing.