$4 Billion For Supply Chains

$4 Billion For Supply Chains

Maura Bennett
Maura Bennett

Taking lessons from the disruption of COVID-19, the USDA says it will spend $4 billion dollars to improve the nation’s supply chains.

As the amount of the investment implies, the plan has some pretty big goals and US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says his agency has plans underway for the food and ag sector:

Vilsack:” ..production resiliency, processing resiliency, distribution and aggregation resiliency, and markets and consumer benefit.

Vilsack says this new effort also tackles the climate crisis, helps communities that have been left behind, and helps to support good-paying jobs throughout the supply chain.

Vilsack: “ Over the course of the next several months we will be announcing specific elements of this, resources that will become available.

Secretary Vilsack was also named co-chair of the Administration’s new Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force. The Task Force will provide a whole of government response to address near-term supply chain challenges to the economic recovery.

Vilsack: In a number of sectors or our economy transportation, energy, manufacturing to name just three.

As every ag producer knows, the pandemic highlighted problems with processing capacity. It created supply bottlenecks, which led to a drop in plant and slaughter capacity. He says small and midsize farmers struggled to compete for processing access. So new and expanded regional processing capacity is high on the list. So too are expanded food markets and infrastructure so more Americans can access healthy foods.

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