Dear Colleagues,

California Department of Food and Agriculture's (CDFA) Office of Pesticide Consultation and Analysis (OPCA) is now accepting applications for the Proactive IPM Solutions Program. The goal of CDFA's Proactive IPM Solutions program is to anticipate which exotic pests are likely to arrive in California and/or spread from isolated local populations and to develop and test low impact management strategies that can be quickly implemented if these pests become established in the state. CDFA is responsible for preventing and mitigating the establishment of new invasive pests and controlling the spread of locally established invasive pests within the state, and techniques resulting from this proactive approach will allow for rapid deployment of management plans focused on the least harmful approaches.

Proposals must identify and justify a high priority target pest from the CDFA target pest list in the RFA. Project proposals must include details and reasoning on what IPM techniques for that pest (biological/cultural control, monitoring, etc.) will be investigated. Projects may include any number of IPM components, including a single aspect of an IPM system. Projects with biological control components should detail a plan to collect data necessary to obtain a release permit and describe the process to obtain it. The focus of the research should be on long-term control of the invasive pest that minimizes disruption of urban communities and existing agricultural IPM systems. For example, it would be preferable to prioritize testing selective chemistries, biological chemistries, cultural control, and biological control, over broad-spectrum insecticides. Proposals should consider availability of products not registered in California and potential remedies.

Visit the program web page at https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/opca/proactive-ipm.html for more information.

Proposal Due: August 30, 2024

Amount: $550,000

Match: CDFA encourages but does not require matching funds from industry partners

Thank you.

ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)