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Contract Opportunity

THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR PROPOSALS/QUOTES/BIDS, THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT SYNOPSIS ONLY

This Sources Sought is for the purpose of identifying firms that can meet the following United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Requirements.

The USDA ARS Subtropical Horticultural Research Station has a requirement for grafting services under NAICS 115112, Soil Preparation, Planting, and Cultivating. The objective is to provide 1,677 root stocks of cacao to a nursery with a goal of receiving 1,177 successful grafted trees.

Specific tasks and deliverables may include: A Grafting Technician will be permitted access to the station every Thursday from 8am until 12pm to cut a piece of budwood from each of 107 cacao accessions. The technician will transport the budwood accessions to the nursery. At the nursery, the technician will graft each clone and keep the plants for 3 months. At the 3-month mark, the technician will transport 642 cloned trees a designated farm in the Miami area and 535 cloned trees to USDA-ARS-SHS. The unused extra rootstock seedlings are property of the Government and will be returned to the USDA-ARS-SHRS.

The nursery has 3 months from the date of the receipt of the budwood to graft the clone and transmit it to the necessary location. A written milestone report is required at the one-month mark detailing the progress, identifying which clones have been successfully grafted. A successful graft at the one-month mark would be kept for two additional months to ensure the grafted scion successfully joins to the rootstock.

This Sources Sought is not to be considered as a request for proposal/quotes/bids or as an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services. No entitlement to payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by the Government will arise as a result of the contractor submission to this Sources Sought or the Government's use of such information. The Government reserves the right to reject, in whole or in part, any contractor's input resulting from this RFI. No contract will be awarded as a result of this announcement. Data submitted in response to this RFI will not be returned.

INSTRUCTION FOR SUBMISSION:

After review of the attached documentation, interested parties may submit a response in an electronic format only via email to osvaldo.rodriguez@usda.gov no later than April 9, 2022, 10:00 AM ET.

Electronic files should be in Microsoft Office Word or PDF format. All information should be UNCLASSIFIED material only.

Respondents should include as part of their submission:

1. Capabilities statement.


2. GSA Number if applicable


3. DUNS Number


4. Firm Name


5. Firm Address


6. Business size, SDVOSB, HUBZone, or Woman owned status, as validated via the System for Award Administration (SAM). All offers must register on the SAM located at http://www.SAM.gov


7. Firm’s point of contact, phone and email address.


8. Past work experience. If you have experience working with other Federal Agencies and/or commercial businesses of similar size and scope, please include agency and/or business name contract number (if applicable), amount and type of contract (e.g. FFP, T&M, Labor hour etc).

Any proprietary information must be marked as such, the RFI information should not exceed a total of 10 one-sided 8 1/2x11 pages, with one-inch margins, and font no smaller than 12 point.

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