2014 Organic Corn Winter Nursery

The USDA ARS Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Unit (CICG) in Ames, IA, intends to award procurement of an Organic Corn Winter Nursery to the University of Puerto Rico AES Research Office in San Juan, PR. This nursery will be managed by the USDA Organic Standards for producing corn. This nursery procurement will be conducted in accordance with the procedures in FAR Part 13.106 and 6.303-2. The purchase determination is based on previous organic corn winter nursery experiments that have utilized this farm space. Establishing a nursery in a different location may introduce new variables to the ongoing experiments and impair comparison of results from previous experiments. Introduction of corn experiments in a new location may negatively impact results from numerous years of research and could be detrimental to ongoing research. This vendor has proven their ability to provide farm space, ability to operate within the necessary parameters of our research, provide the stock, pollinating and harvesting supplies needed and to provide the local temporary help to assist breeders during the 4 week pollination period. The cost has been determined fair and reasonable based on current technical knowledge of fair market value. The anticipated purchase order value is $52,068.50. This is not a request for quotation. However, all interested parties may contact the Contract Specialist listed below. Sources interested in responding to this requirement must be able to provide compelling evidence that they can obtain/provide the nursery space, supplies and labor required for this project. Responses must be submitted electronically, via email, to [email protected]. The deadline for the submittal of responses is 12:00 pm central time, February 19, 2014.