CSU, Oregon State selected by USDA to jointly run six-state regional food business center

Colorado State University was selected, in partnership with Oregon State University, to run one of 12 regional food business centers as part of a new U.S. Department of Agriculture program, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and other officials announced Friday in a news conference at CSU’s McIlwraith Translational Medicine Institute.

The regional food business centers “will provide coordination, technical assistance and capacity building to help farmers, ranchers and other food businesses access new markets and navigate federal, state and local resources, thereby closing the gaps to success," USDA officials said in a news release.

The USDA announced $400 million in funding for the initiative in September, 2022, officials said. The regional food business center that CSU and Oregon State will jointly run will serve farmers, ranchers and other food businesses in a six-state region that includes Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming and Washington.

The regional center will receive $30 million in funding for five years, putting about $1 million per year into each of the states it will serve, said Dawn Thilmany, a professor who university President Amy Parsons said played a key role in CSU’s selection.

“In short, what we hope to do with this new center is provide technical assistance for anybody who wants to start a food business, who wants to move into a new farmers’ market, is looking at a new product,” said Thilmany, associate director of CSU’s Regional Economic Development Institute. “Second of all, they’re giving us license to actually give grants out, so if we see a business idea that looks like it’s ready to flourish and run, we’ll now have the ability to invest in those pods, whereas before at Colorado State all we could really do was say, 'Well, we’ll help you write a grant.' ”

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The new regional food business centers are part of a major new program by the USDA to improve supply chains and make the country’s food supply more resilient, Bennet said.

The USDA also announced the creation this week of a $420 million Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program to fund innovative projects designed to invest in processing and distribution capacity to build resilience across the middle of the supply chain and strengthen local and regional food systems. The two programs together are “key pillars” in Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s “food transformations framework,” said Jenny Lester Moffitt, the USDA’s undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

“It will expand the resiliency of our food system, strengthen local and regional markets, provide more new and better markets for producers and consumers and make more nutritious food available for people and then finally strengthen our rural communities and economies by investing locally, providing jobs and shifting more of the food dollars back to the family farm,” Moffitt said.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: CSU, Oregon State to jointly run USDA regional food business center