Kansas and Missouri are distributing more than $13 million to strengthen local food systems. Projects that touch processing, transportation and distribution between harvest and final sale to consumers are eligible for funding under the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) program.
“It’s not the sexy part,” said Rebecca McMahon, administrator of the Local Food System Program at Kansas State University. “It’s not the growing and the making Instagram-worthy food at the end of the food chain. It’s the entirely non-sexy (part), putting things on a refrigerated truck and putting them in a cooler.”
These connecting pieces are vital to a strong food system.
The program, which is a partnership between state departments and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), taps funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Brittney Grother, grants coordinator at the Kansas Department of Agriculture, said there is a lot of excitement in the state because the program addresses oft-overlooked links in the food chain. “In order to see more resilience, there’s a need to focus on our local supply chain,” Grother said. The department, which was awarded more than $6.4 million in RFSI funding, hosted outreach sessions to identify needs for funding in Kansas and used this information to build its proposal to the USDA. Grother said the department focused on three priorities for the funding: aggregation points, food processing infrastructure and storage.
To read more of this article and how to apply for funding click HERE.
