infrastructure

The mission of USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) is to anticipate trends and emerging issues in agriculture, food and rural America and produces objective economic research to inform and enhance public and private decision making. Among its research activities, ERS is conducting research on the impacts of and returns to infrastructure in rural areas, and is cosponsoring a workshop with the Farm Foundation on these issues.

Culverts provide an abundance of benefits to us every day. They allow us to pass over water, and for fish and wildlife to pass beneath us. And they allow us to go about our daily lives and ideally, for fish and wildlife to do the same. But when they’re badly designed, the results can be disastrous for people, communities, and the environment.

2015 was another banner year for innovative Federal / Tribal partnerships, government-to-government relations with Federally Recognized Tribes and investments that continue to improve the quality of life for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Here are five examples from this past year of ways USDA and this Administration have built on their deep commitment to improving our working relationships with Tribes and helping them meet unique challenges facing tribal communities head-on.

Here at USDA, we know that having strong rural communities is critical to ensuring that rural America remains a viable place for families to call home. That's why, through smart investments and regional partnerships, we continuously work to expand opportunities by fostering the creation of diverse and productive rural economies through everything from home loans to financing for infrastructure and business ventures.

Infrastructure, like homes, buildings, roads and power, is the first step toward prosperity and growth in any community. For small rural communities, however, large-scale infrastructure development can be challenging. Small towns have more limited resources and a smaller tax base that can make access to credit difficult. Fortunately, USDA Rural Development can help. We are proud to partner with rural communities across America to provide affordable financing for these essentials, including financing to bring high speed broadband, including remote, poor and under-served areas. Additionally, we provide loans, grants and technical assistance for water systems, wastewater systems, essential community facilities like schools and hospitals, small business start-up or expansion.

These days, it seems like it’s easier than ever to turn a good idea into reality. This is the era of Kickstarter, where entrepreneurs can connect with potential investors at the click of a button.

Of course, it takes more than money to grow an idea. It takes an atmosphere that fosters creativity and rewards innovation. And at a deeper, less obvious level, it requires strong, secure infrastructure—roads and bridges, but also internet access and community facilities like hospitals and schools—that improves connectivity and access to information, moves products to market, and makes communities competitive and attractive to new businesses and investments.

Urban agriculture and gardening can be an important tool in confronting several key challenges that Americans face: from supporting farm viability in and around urban areas to improving access to healthful, affordable food to realizing the potential of rural-urban linkages.

[Editor's note: a version of this article was originally published in the Food Safety and Inspection Service's Small Plant News.  This post covers Rural Development loan programs available to small plants; an upcoming post will cover Rural Development grant programs.]

If you are a small packinghouse or processor and you want to expand, upgrade, or update your facility, assistance is available. As covered in the Volume 1, Number 3 issue of Small Plant News, USDA’s Rural Development is ready to offer assistance in the form of loans and grants, which this two-part series will examine.

Since coming into office in 2009, President Obama and I have taken important steps to avoid potential economic collapse, and strengthen the American economy for future generations.  America’s families have tightened their belts during these difficult times, and government needs to do the same.  That is why the Fiscal Year 2012 budget looks for opportunities to cut waste and streamline operations – but also proposes cutting programs that the President and I care about to work towards controlling the deficits.  Last year, USDA provided $4 billion to help pay down the debt by renegotiating an agreement with crop insurance companies.  This budget continues that commitment to deficit reduction – proposing a nearly $2 billion decrease from our request for Fiscal Year 2011.

Sometimes those of us in Washington DC take ourselves too seriously.  I’ve fallen into that trap more than once.  So, when it came time to shoot our video on the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) hoop house offering, launched last year as part of the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative, we decided to have some fun.  On a beautiful late November day, I joined White House chef Sam Kass to put small hoops

One afternoon in the fall of 2003, 36 consumers and several volunteers gathered in the basement of an Oklahoma City church to sort and purchase products from twenty local producers.  They generated $3,500 in sales, and the opening day of the Oklahoma Food Coop (OFC) was determined to have been a great success.