Tuesday, September 30, 2014

$1 Million In Federal Funding To Promote N.M. Agriculture

Several organizations in New Mexico will share $538,279 in federal grants to help develop new markets for agricultural products. In addition, New Mexico State University will receive $499,191 to improve competitiveness of organic livestock and crop producers.


The 2014 FMLFPP funding is as follows:
  • Delicious New Mexico (Albuquerque) will receive $100,000 provide outreach, marketing, training and technical assistance to improve and expand the EspaƱola Food Hub into an incubation hub for Northern New Mexico food businesses.
  • Santa Fe Community Foundation will receive $100,000 to expand a local, healthy food procurement program to low-income and low-access communities that will improve the capacity of Pueblo agricultural producers through farm-to-market training.
  • The National Center for Frontier Communities will receive $25,000 to the National Center for Frontier Communities to assess the feasibility of a regional food hub in Silver City to support a more self-sufficient local food economy in southwestern New Mexico.
  • The Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute will receive $91,604 to establish an advertising campaign to promote the market and Federal benefits redemption at the South Side Summer Market, and provide technical assistance and professional training to vendors.
  • The Pueblo of Pojoaque will receive $44,616 for promotional activities, expanded services and season and vendor recruitment to grow the Pojoaque Farmers Market.
  • The Pinyon Foundation (Santa Fe) will receive $100,000 to produce and implement Spanish language multimedia campaigns promoting farmers’ markets nationwide.
  • The New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association will receive $77,059 to promote SNAP redemption at farmers markets in four counties and train vendors to use EBT.
Source

Announcing these grants, our Senators say:

“Connecting our communities to their local farmers and produce markets increases options for families to purchase healthy, locally-grown food, and it helps boost the economy at the same time,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) in a statement announcing the grants along with Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM). “Through investments in marketing outreach and training, small family farmers and ranchers – especially in our rural and tribal communities – will have the tools necessary to attract more business while providing fresh food options to New Mexicans.
All this while they're trying to put almost 40 ranching families in Dona Ana and Luna County out of business through wilderness/national monument designations.  Shame on these families for doing their own marketing and for not producing organic beef, having a food hub or being on food stamps.  

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