Forestry Recovery Initiative (FRI)

The application portal for Phase 2 of the Forestry Recovery Initiative CLOSED at 11:59 PM on Tuesday, October 18, 2022. Award announcements were made via email on December 9, 2022. Please understand additional time will be required to process awards and distribute award payments. 

Goals and Purpose of the Forestry Recovery

Goals and Purpose of the Forestry Recovery Initiative

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 provided Maine with a significant amount of discretionary funding. In July of last year, the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan was passed by the Maine State Legislature which allocated these dollars to a wide range of programs and industries across the state. Maine’s Forestry industry was awarded $20M to mitigate damage caused by the pandemic. Approximately $6M was designated for Phase 1 of the Forestry Recovery Initiative (FRI-1) which MTI administered and deployed early in 2022. The remaining $14M will be distributed as part of Phase 2 of the Forestry Recovery Initiative (FRI-2) program.

FRI-1 was designed to provide immediate relief to small businesses in the Maine Forestry industry. 219 businesses applied for and received grants as part of FRI-1, with an average grant award of over $27K.

FRI-2 is specifically focused on either strategic projects within the state that address significant challenges and long-term threats to the industry, or projects at existing facilities which significantly improve the productivity and competitiveness of the facility. These strategic projects will tackle global market shifts in supply and demand, supply chain disruptions and new technologies that impact the growing, processing and use of natural resources from this key sector of Maine’s economy.

FRI-2 seeks applicants from companies developing new technologies, new markets, and other innovative solutions for the Forestry industry. Companies from outside of Maine that intend to develop a significant project within the state are also eligible to apply.

FRI-2 is a competitive application process: awards will be made to a subset of eligible applications that demonstrate satisfactory adherence to the program mission.