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USDA Awards $28.5M in Rural Development Grants
New grants totaling more than $28.5 million will help foster the development of new products and markets for agriculturally based products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week. In all, 184 value-added agricultural product market development grants were distributed across 40 states.
Twenty-nine of the selected applications – a total of $4.3 million in grants – will focus on biomass and renewable energy. For example, Central Illinois Energy Cooperative will utilize $250,000 to assist with the construction of a 30-million-gallon-per-year ethanol processing and co-generation facility.
Authorized as part of the 2002 Farm Bill, the Value-Added Agricultural Product Market Development Grants program provides an opportunity to refine agricultural commodities and products to increase their value in the marketplace. Applications selected for funding range from Arkansas-based Planters Cotton Oil Mill, Inc., which will develop a feasibility analysis and business plan for marketing and manufacturing of an oilseed processing product, to Massachusetts Woodlands Cooperative, LLC to expand markets that focus on forest stewardship, green certified materials and other value-added forest products.
Funding of selected applicants will be contingent upon meeting the conditions of the grant agreement. A complete list of the selected grant recipients is available through the USDA Rural Development website: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov. In addition, SSTI has prepared a table showing a state-by-state breakdown of awards: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/121903t.htm