Farm harvest, pass 1

The farm vertical's first prospect intake (workstream 1 of the container's FARM-VERTICAL.md). Statewide per the operator's order; the home-county bonus stays as-is, so a West Michigan farm still outranks a distant one at equal signal.

The vein

MDARD grant announcements: public, dated, dollar-figured, and each one names a funded buildout, which is the honest version of "this business is about to need trades work." Three releases mined 2026-09-08:

• 2026-09-08: $2.3M Underserved/Value-Added/Regional Food Systems grants, 28 awardees statewide (announced the same day as this pass).
• 2026-08-20: economic development / small business infrastructure grants, 20 projects.
• 2026-07-22: $450K FAIP award (Star of the West Corn Milling).

Also checked and closed: USDA REAP (grant window frozen 2026-03-31 per USDA, loans only, no fresh awardee lists) and the 2026-04-30 RFSI and 2026-05-20 fairlife FAIP releases (older than the rubric's 90-day freshness gate).

The selection rule

A row enters when (1) the awardee is a farm or farm-facing producer, (2) the funded work has a wiring, controls, refrigeration, automation, or data shape, and (3) it is a private business we may cold-write under the rubric. 30 rows entered as identified, signal category farm, letter binding pitch-farm-grant (template drafted, awaiting approval).

Skipped, and why (the misses ledger)

• Governments and tribal government: City of Mt. Pleasant, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. Public bodies buy through procurement; cold email can disqualify a bid (GOV lane doctrine).
• Nonprofits with missions, not buildouts we should pitch: Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, Grow Jackson, Dutton Farm (training program), Greater Bridgman Chamber (grantee is an intermediary).
• Food brands without a farm shape (may fit other verticals later): Safie Specialty Foods, Achatz Handmade Pie, The Lakehouse Bakery, Peace Pie, BLiS Gourmet, Beer City Dog Biscuits, Daddy's Dough, N18 Cabaret Trail (housing).
• Taprooms: Elder Piper, Superior Culture (hospitality builds, not farm operations).
• Sawmills held for a decision: Devereaux Sawmill (Pewamo) and S&L Lumber (Iron River) both funded serious production-line automation; forestry is in MDARD's portfolio but Brad said FARMS. One word flips them in.
• First Catch LLC (L'Anse): private business building a fish processing facility on tribal land; held out of cold outreach pending a think on whether that is our letter to send.

The contact dig (2026-09-08, same day)

All 30 rows worked under the published-only rule: an email counts only from the business's own pages (or a farm-maintained directory), a name only from their own site or dated coverage. 18 rows closed with a named person and a published email; 12 wait, each with the reason on the row. Every contact's provenance (exact page, date) is in the row's curation note.

Notable finds along the way: Sanilac Creamery is the former Zingerman's Creamery, rebranded fall 2025 and operating in Ann Arbor (the name is personal, not locational); Dairy Doo publishes a full staff directory with per-person emails; B&B Farms' website phone is an unreplaced template placeholder (logged so nobody dials it); Blue Mitten's site has an expired TLS certificate, verified by hand.

What was seen and deliberately NOT used, per doctrine: ZoomInfo and RocketReach obscured executive emails (Riveridge), scraper-directory names (Jim Maurer via Manta, Larry Judge via OpenCorporates), a Yelp gmail for Z&N that their own site does not publish, and every Facebook or Instagram page. Two surnames from a rate-limited local paper are flagged UNVERIFIED on their rows.

What happens next (the machine's normal course)

The 18 with contacts auto-qualify (G1-G4 pass); the 12 without wait in the queue. Letters are drafted per-prospect only after Brad approves the farm letter template, and drafted/contacted stay human gates.