Solano County Strategic Initiative for Agriculture

Solano County, one of the nine Bay Area counties, is a place rich in natural and agricultural resources. Solano County honors a longstanding tradition of protecting those resources for the use and enjoyment of current and future generations. Solano County extends from the shores of San Pablo Bay in the west to the heart of the Central Valley in the east and is centrally located between the San Francisco and Sacramento metropolitan regions. The county encompasses approximately 910 square miles consisting of 830 square miles of land and 80 square miles of water. Solano County intends to execute a contract with one prime consultant to provide services and deliverables needed to complete a Strategic Initiative for Agriculture promoting the long-term economic prosperity of Solano's local food and agricultural systems. As several of the services and deliverables requested may require work by different subconsultants, it is anticipated that the Scope of Work, excluding outreach and engagement and mapping, will be completed by a consultant team that is managed and represented by one prime consultant working under contract with the County. It is also expected that the prime consultant will also serve as the project manager, directing and overseeing all aspects of Initiative preparation, reporting, and liaising with the County Agricultural Commissioner and project committees, assisting with outreach and facilitation, and ensuring that all applicable State grant requirements are fulfilled. The Initiative will deliver a next generation of land use policies and agricultural economic and infrastructure plans that will position an already diverse and multi-tiered local food and agricultural system for future growth, prosperity and resilience. Development of the Initiative will involve seven major tasks: (1) community outreach and engagement including convening of special project committees; (2) GIS mapping, including building a current GIS crop layer and a gap analysis of further mapping data needs; (3) a quantitative assessment of the total economic contribution of agricultural production to the Solano County economy and development of an agricultural economic development plan; (4) assessment of food and agricultural infrastructure needs and development of an agricultural infrastructure action plan; (5) develop a report and plan for related land use planning actions; (6) Initiative completion, issuance of final report and presentation to the County Board of Supervisors; and, (7) County project management. This RFP seeks consultant services to lead Tasks 3, 4, 5, and 6. Task 1, community outreach and engagement will be led by an additional consultant, Task 2, mapping, will be led by Solano Department of Information Technology, and Task 7, internal County project management, will be led by the County Agricultural Commissioner.