Shelby Shank
Field Editor

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced an additional $9.6 million in grants and loans across the country to help increase meat processing capacity, farm income and consumer choice, as well as create jobs.

“USDA has undertaken a department-wide approach to coordinate ways to deliver more opportunities and fairer prices for producers, to give people access to healthier foods, eliminate bottlenecks in the food supply chain and ultimately lower prices for consumers,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

USDA announced 25 new investments to increase independent meat processing capacity.

USDA is awarding $3.9 million in grants through the Value Added Producer Grant Program to help producer-owned companies process and market new products.

An additional $5.7 million in loans through the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program using American Rescue Plan funding. This program supports new investments in infrastructure for food aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storage, transportation, wholesaling and distribution.

Through these two programs, USDA is investing in 25 projects in California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

New processors are selected in areas where farmers have limited options to sell their livestock, Vilsack stated.

“It may very well be that some parts of this country are not in a circumstance or situation where additional capacity is needed,” Vilsack said.

Some of the funding will be used in the Lone Star State.

Bottomland Prime LLC was awarded $4.95 million in loans to acquire and expand Edes Custom Meats in Amarillo, Texas.

The project will include custom USDA-inspected processing for local producers and specialty markets, as well as local retail sales of beef cuts, sausage, jerky, pork and lamb. The project also will include creating wholesale markets through different convenience stores and cold storage services.

Vilsack noted in a press conference the funded programs aim to create “additional market opportunities that will hopefully create more income for farmers, more choice for consumers and more jobs in rural areas.”

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) also has funded $54.6 million in grants to 278 businesses and individuals through the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grant Program to strengthen and develop new market opportunities for U.S. meat and poultry processors. Facility improvements and expansions funded through this program will help processors obtain a federal grant of inspection or qualify for a state’s Cooperative Interstate Shipment program.

To further these efforts, AMS also invested up to $25 million to establish the Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity Technical Assistance Program.

This program consists of a nationwide network to ensure that participants in USDA’s Meat and Poultry Supply Chain initiatives have access to a full range of technical assistance to support their project development and success.

To learn more about USDA funded-projects and to see the full list of grant and loan recipients, visit rd.usda.gov.