The Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program

The GusNIP grant program presents the opportunity to bring together stakeholders from various parts of the food and healthcare systems to foster understanding of how they might improve the health and nutrition status of participating households 1) receiving incentives through the purchase of fruits and vegetables, 2) prescribed fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to nutrition educational opportunities and 3) offer incentive program training and technical assistance to applicants and grantees, facilitating growth in states with low participation, and collecting and aggregating core data sets from eligible entities through a central system to capture program success and identify best practices and areas to improve on a broad scale. NIFA requests applications for the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) to support and evaluate projects intended to increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables by low-income consumers participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by providing incentives at the point of purchase through nutrition incentive grants; and to demonstrate and evaluate the improvement of dietary health through increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, reduced individual and household food insecurity, and reduced healthcare usage and associated costs through produce prescription grants. The GusNIP grant program Nutrition Incentive Program Training, Technical Assistance, Evaluation and Information Centers (NTAE) cooperative agreement applications will be invited again in FY2022, when the current cooperative agreement ends.