USDA Announces Plans To Fund Meat Processing Efforts

Earlier this year, Agriculture Secretary Tom Villsack told a Capitol Hill hearing on competition in the meat processing industry:

" We're gonna come up with a very creative way to significantly expand processing capacity in this country."

And USDA recently announced several more programs that could be doing just that, with a broader goal of, "creating a stronger food supply chain and particularly one that focuses on meat and poultry processing," said Doctor Karama Neal heads up USDA's Rural Business Cooperative Services.

She said one of these newly announced programs is called the Meat and Poultry Intermediary Lending Program. Really its a $200 million competitive grant program in which USDA awards money to non profit lenders so they can create revolving loan funds.

"They loan the funds out initially, initially they have to be loaned to wave a meat or poultry processor, but as those funds are re-payed they can still be loaned to a meat or poultry processor, but they can also loaned across the food system."

USDA will be accepting program applications from non profit lenders until the end of July, there will be another application window this fall.

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