Value Added
Value Added. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.
Ag producers in the northwest who are looking at the possibility of developing alternate energy sources take note. You may be able to get money from the USDA to help fund that project. Calotta Donisi with USDA’s Rural Development says that is part of what rural development is all about.
DONISI: USDA Rural Development has over 40 programs which cover 3 mission areas; business programs, housing and community programs such as infrastructure, utilities that help individuals, businesses and organizations in communities to improve the quality of life and increase the economic development possibilities.
She says they do that through grants, loans and loan guarantees and one program is the Value Added Producer Grant.
DONISI: The objective of the USDA Value Added Producer Grant is to help agricultural producers, ag producer groups, farmers and rancher cooperatives to develop business plans for marketing opportunities and to develop strategies to create marketing opportunities in emerging markets. It’s designed to help farmers and ranchers expand their customer base for their products or commodities.
When it comes to renewable energy Donisi says the grants are there for most types of production.
DONISI: The renewable energy part of the value added is for the purpose of on-farm production of renewable energy so that could be wind, solar, biomass, anaerobic digesters, geothermal that sort of thing. And that would be on-farm production of those renewable energy sources.
There are a number of restrictions when it comes to the grants. You can’t purchase land and you can’t use it for research and development. You must have that part of your plan done and she adds that there is help for producers when it comes to the application process.
DONISI: On the USDA Rural Development web site, the national website, there is a very good spot for applicants to first of all just see if they are going to be eligible, kind of a little self assessment type thing and then there’s a complete template for making sure that the whole framework of the application where everything is met so that you wouldn’t skip something and miss out on points. It’s really actually a really good website.
And she adds that there is always help from your local rural development office.
For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
