The Alabama Department of Agriculture hopes a federal grant will help build Alabama’s food supply chain.
Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries Rick Pate explained that the USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service is working with the state to build resilience across the middle of the supply chain and strengthen local and regional food systems.
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritizing this project has been essential for Alabama,” Pate said. “Before its official launch, I reached out to USDA to emphasize Alabama’s need for funding to strengthen our local food supply chain.”
The $5.9 million grant is meant to create new revenue streams for small and mid-sized producers.
The money will be split into six grants. Examples of funded projects include a partnership with multiple grower cooperatives throughout the Black Belt to advance cold chain and processing infrastructure; the construction of a new dairy processing facility at Miller Family Dairy that can be used as an aggregation and distribution hub by other dairies; and a processing facility on Anderson Farms that will aggregate products from an additional 10 farms.
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