USDA Awards $8.78 Million in Risk Management Partnership Agreements, Including Ones to Traditionally Under-Served Customers

WASHINGTON.- USDA is awarding $8.78 million in agricultural risk management partnership agreements, including ones for outreach and education opportunities to limited-resource and other traditionally under-served farmers and ranchers, throughout the United States.

These agreements will provide funds for projects to develop new risk management tools for farmers and ranchers. Funding for the agreements is available under the Federal Crop Insurance Act. USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) administers these projects as well as the Federal crop insurance program.

Community Outreach and Assistance - $4 Million

Fifty competitively awarded partnerships will use $4,087,497 to educate women, limited-resource, and other traditionally under-served farmers and ranchers. In Minnesota, a project targeted to Hmong, Latino, Native, and African American famers will provide legal education and training. A project in Appalachia will support limited resource farmers in the region in accessing and operating in growing markets for locally grown food. Another project targeted to limited resource farmers, as well as food service personnel and students, will fund a two-day national conference in California on managing risk through building new markets.

Targeted States - $4 Million

The Targeted States program is awarding 15 partnerships totaling $4,361,305 through agreements providing risk management and crop insurance education and training for the historically under-served states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Commodity Small Sessions - $335,646

USDA awarded 34 partnership agreements under the Commodity Small Sessions Partnerships program in amounts up to $10,000. Among the agreements are six conferences throughout the country stressing farm safety and health training; a risk management education conference for the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in California; conferences for specialty crop and horticulture producers; Master Marketer training for South Texas producers, and funding for the 2009 Women in Agriculture Conference in Wisconsin. Other agreements include risk management strategy sessions for Illinois small operators and livestock producers, and training for farm and ranch women in successful intergenerational transfers of their family estates.