NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE

This notice is being published in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 5.101 requiring dissemination of information for proposed contract actions. This is a notice of intent to award a sole source contract and is not a request for competitive quotes/proposals. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition is NAICS 115112, Soil Preparation, Planting, and Cultivating, with a small business size standard of $9.5M.

Background: 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. Vendor technician(s) 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(s) will transport the budwood accessions to the nursery. At the nursery, the technician(s) will graft each clone and keep the plants for 3 months. At the 3-month mark, the technician(s) 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.

All responsible sources may submit a capability statement demonstrating the ability to provide the requested service, which shall be considered by the agency before the intended award date. Interested sources who submit data are responsible for appropriately marking information if it is proprietary in nature. The Government shall not reimburse interested sources for any information provided. No requests for capability briefings will be honored. Quotations received in response to this notice will not be accepted since the synopsis is not a request for quote. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.

A capability statement may be sent via email to osvaldo.rodriguez@usda.gov no later than April 27, 2024, 10:00 AM ET.

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