The Secretary, acting through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, shall establish a program under which competitive grants are made to qualified public and private entities (including land grant colleges, cooperative extension services, and colleges or universities), as determined by the Secretary, for the purpose of educating agricultural producers and providing technical assistance to agricultural producers on a full range of farm viability and risk management activities, including futures, options, agricultural trade options, crop insurance, business planning, enterprise analysis, transfer and succession planning, management coaching, market assessment, cash flow analysis, cash forward contracting, debt reduction, production diversification, farm resources risk reduction, farm financial benchmarking, conservation activities, and other risk management strategies.

A grant under this paragraph shall be awarded on the basis of merit and shall be subject to peer or merit review.

Funds for a grant under this paragraph shall be available to the Secretary for obligation for a 2-year period.

The Secretary may use not more than 4 percent of the funds made available for grants under this paragraph for administrative costs incurred by the Secretary in carrying out this paragraph.