Philadelphia, PA, July 21, 2023 – Right this moment, the Biden-Harris Administration introduced a sequence of investments that may enhance market entry and income streams for producers whereas strengthening the meals system and giving customers higher entry to domestically grown meals and more healthy selections. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small made the announcement in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as officers from the Biden-Harris Administration journey throughout the nation to show how President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is delivering outcomes and creating transformative new financial alternatives for households and companies.
The U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) introduced 17 new City Service Facilities and ten new city county committees, in addition to roughly $10.7 million in investments for the Patrick Leahy Farm to Faculty Program and an enlargement of the Wholesome Meals Financing Initiative, together with roughly $30 million in funding availability for the brand new Native and Regional Wholesome Meals Financing Partnerships Initiative.
“By way of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we’re rising native economies and constructing resilient communities, whether or not rural or city, in each nook throughout the nation,” stated Secretary Vilsack. “The Biden-Harris Administration is dedicated to supporting city communities by means of elevated market alternatives for small and mid-sized producers, strengthening the meals system nationally and domestically, and investing in city agricultural operations. These steps will enable households and farmers alike to profit from more healthy meals produced nearer to house.”
Collectively, these bulletins spotlight the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda and Bidenomics technique to develop native economies from the center out and backside up and create extra resilient and more healthy communities throughout the nation. As well as, the HFFI Partnerships Program and Farm to Faculty Program investments help the Biden–Harris Administration’s Nationwide Technique on Starvation, Vitamin, and Well being.
“Households ought to have entry to wholesome, domestically grown meals regardless of the place they reside, and farmers ought to have the ability to entry worthwhile markets and income streams no matter their zip code,” stated Deputy Secretary Torres Small. “Right this moment’s announcement demonstrates USDA and the Biden-Harris Administration’s continued dedication to investing in farmers of each dimension, in each nook of the nation to allow them to thrive and proceed to supply the wholesome meals that households depend on.”
Background on City Agriculture
USDA works with agricultural producers by means of a community of greater than 2,300 Service Facilities nationwide. To raised serve city farmers, USDA is establishing 17 new City Service Facilities. The City Service Facilities will likely be staffed by Farm Service Company (FSA) and Pure Sources Conservation Service (NRCS) staff and can provide farm mortgage, conservation, catastrophe help and danger administration packages.
In the meantime, USDA can be establishing 10 new city county committees, which assist with native administration of FSA packages.
Moreover, to assist strengthen the City Service Facilities and concrete county committees, USDA is investing $40 million, made potential by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, into partnerships with community-based organizations. They embrace:
Partnerships with 17 native organizations that may conduct outreach, schooling and technical help to determine a buyer base for brand new City Service Facilities. These native companions will increase consciousness of USDA packages and assets obtainable and assist city producers enroll, which can help elevated provide chain resiliency in native meals methods by enhancing the sustainability and long-term viability of city farms. For instance, in Philadelphia, USDA is partnering with PASA Sustainable Agriculture to host common neighborhood outreach and engagement occasions for city growers, provide personalized trainings and workshops, and supply direct technical help and individualized help for enrolling in USDA packages.
Collaboration with Virginia State College’s Small Farm Outreach Program and Cornell College’s Small Farm Heart to supply native companion organizations and City Service Facilities throughout the nation with steerage and trainings on the help wanted most by city producers, by amassing and analyzing information to evaluate program boundaries and effectiveness, and by offering suggestions to extend future participation.
Collaboration between To Enhance Mississippi Economics, Inc. (TIME, Inc), who supplies outreach, coaching, and technical help to small, restricted useful resource and underserved producers and organizations offering wholesome meals in impoverished communities, to fund partnerships with community-based organizations within the subsequent 10 cities the place city county committees are being created in 2024.
These investments complement different efforts made by USDA to help urbanagriculture, resembling:
Be taught extra about City Service Facilities, city county committees, and packages for city producers at farmers.gov/city.
Background on Farm to Faculty Grants
USDA’s Meals and Vitamin Service (FNS) awarded $10.7 million to 103 initiatives throughout the nation beneath the Patrick Leahy Farm to Faculty Grant Program. These investments will assist 1.2 million youngsters from practically 3,000 colleges in 40 States and the territory of Guam eat extra tasty, nutritious meals, whereas supporting farmers and producers of their native and regional communities. These investments additionally mirror USDA’s dedication to reaching traditionally underserved and marginalized communities.
Farm to highschool opens alternatives for kids to find out about diet and agriculture by means of hands-on experiences, resembling planting, watering, and harvesting fruits, greens, and herbs. This system may also present a pathway for extra youngsters to realize diet safety, which is the constant and equitable entry to wholesome, secure, and inexpensive meals important to optimum well being and well-being. Because the grant program’s inception in 2013, USDA has awarded $75 million by means of Farm to Faculty Grants throughout all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico, which have reached over 25 million college students in additional than 59,000 colleges.
Go to USDA’s Patrick Leahy Farm to Faculty Grant Program for extra data.
Along with as we speak’s grantmaking, USDA is partnering with the Nationwide Farm to Faculty Community to help its cohort-based Racial Fairness Studying Lab, which launches in Fall 2023. The Lab’s first cohort will embrace a various group of advocates inside the farm to highschool neighborhood who’re dedicated to deepening their understanding of how racial fairness may be built-in into farm to highschool operations.
Background on Native and Regional Wholesome Meals Financing Partnerships Program (HFFI Partnerships Program)
In August 2023, the Reinvestment Fund in partnership with USDA will invite purposes for $30 million in grant funding by means of the brand new HFFI Partnerships Program. This program will award grants to regional, state or native public-private partnerships to determine and develop native, regional or state meals financing packages. Till now, HFFI has solely provided grants and technical help to meals retailers and different enterprises. This new program expands on and enhances that work by participating companions to enhance entry to recent, wholesome and inexpensive meals in addition to offering technical help in underserved areas.
HFFI works to enhance entry to wholesome meals in underserved areas, create and protect high quality jobs and revitalize low-income communities. To manage HFFI, USDA is partnering with Reinvestment Fund, a nationwide Group Improvement Monetary Establishment (CDFI) that serves because the Nationwide Fund Supervisor for HFFI. For extra data, together with program updates and key dates, go to www.investinginfood.com.
Moreover, later this yr, USDA will additional broaden the Wholesome Meals Financing Initiative by providing grants, loans, and technical help to meals retailers and meals enterprises in underserved areas. Extra data on these new alternatives will likely be shared within the coming months. This full enlargement of the HFFI program was made potential by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act.
USDA touches the lives of all Individuals every day in so many constructive methods. Within the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is reworking America’s meals system with a higher give attention to extra resilient native and regional meals manufacturing, guaranteeing entry to wholesome and nutritious meals in all communities, constructing new markets and streams of earnings for farmers and producers utilizing climate-smart meals and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean-energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to fairness throughout the Division by eradicating systemic boundaries and constructing a workforce extra consultant of America. To be taught extra, go to www.usda.gov.
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