The U.S. Department of Agriculture is dedicating $5.6 million to help Arkansas farmers and food distributors access new markets.
$4.2 million of the funding from the USDA’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program will go toward a grant program for producers and distributors in the state.
Jenny Lester Moffit, the USDA Marketing and Regulatory Programs Under Secretary, made the announcement at the Arkansas Foodbank in Little Rock on Tuesday. She said the grants will help Arkansas farmers access new markets, and hopefully help improve the rate of food insecurity in the state.
“It’s things like aggregation. Small farmers can bring their product to one place, and be able to aggregate their product and sell to schools, which they may not normally have been able to do. Or to food banks,” she said.
“It’s also about processing capacity and adding new value and income streams to product that is grown here in Arkansas, where producers can bring more of that food dollar back to Arkansas communities.”
Arkansas currently ranks first in the nation for its rate of food insecurity. In partnership with the Arkansas Department of Agriculture, the program will also provide technical assistance to growers and distributors seeking to participate.
P.J. Haynie, a fifth-generation row crop farmer and chairman of the National Black Growers Council, said ensuring equity and diversity will be key to the grant program’s success.
“We know the gaps in production agriculture, we know the gaps in processing… we know Black farmers grow corn and cotton and soybeans and peanuts, rice, wheat, but unfortunately there are no Black-owned processing facilities for the majority of those commodities,” he said, noting Arkansas is home to the country’s lone Black-owned rice mill.
Moffit noted the previous success of the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, first announced in 2022. The program “seeks to purchase and distribute locally grown, produced, and processed food from underserved producers,” according to the USDA website.
Arkansas’ share of funding is part of up to $420 million announced by the USDA in May of 2023. The deadline to apply for the grant program is February 16.
