Funding To Support New Farmers and More
Big Boost in Funding to Support New Farmers, New Program Can Support Farmer Viability During COVID-19, and Vilsack Clears Step Toward Senate Confirmation in this Week’s News from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)
Big Boost In Funding To Support New Farmers
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced the availability of $16.5 million in grant funds to help launch new and expand existing programs to train beginning farmers and ranchers. This funding to support new farmers will be administered as federal grants awarded through the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP), which was reauthorized in the 2018 Farm Bill. To date, BFRDP remains the only USDA program specifically dedicated to training the next generation of America’s farmers and ranchers.
USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which administers BFRDP, formally released the Requests for Application (RFA) for fiscal years (FY) 2021 and 2022 in late December. Organizations interested in applying for grant funding must submit an electronic application through Grants.gov by 5:00pm EST on Thursday March 25, 2021 (for FY21 projects) and Thursday March 24, 2022 (for FY22 projects).
Release: New Analysis Finds USDA Program Can Support Farmer Viability and Alleviate Food Insecurity Both During and Beyond COVID-19 Crisis
With funding from Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the Farmers to Families Food Box Program as part of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to contract farms, farmer associations, and distributors to purchase and distribute fresh food to nonprofit organizations such as food banks. The Program has helped to keep farmers and distributors afloat during the pandemic and has helped alleviate hunger to an extent, but there are many opportunities for improvement.
Based on interviews with more than 30 stakeholders from across the food system, The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) and The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) highlight opportunities to make the Program more equitable and effective in their new report, An Evaluation of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. Among the report’s recommendations is a call for clearer messaging and steps taken to ensure priority subcontracting with small- and mid-sized, and minority- and women-owned farms, and that distribution targets minority-led nonprofits.
Read the Executive Summary here.
Read the full report below.
Release: USDA Secretary of Agriculture Nominee Tom Vilsack Clears First Step Toward Senate Confirmation
This week, the Senate Agriculture Committee favorably reported out the nomination of Tom Vilsack to serve again as the Secretary of Agriculture for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Secretary addressed questions from Democratic and Republican Committee members and the vote to refer his nomination to the full Senate passed unanimously.
Among the lines of inquiry put forward by Senators were questions about how Vilsack would address systemic racism in USDA programming, climate change, and longstanding issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, including food insecurity and food supply chain resilience.
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