The Nebraska Department of Agriculture has awarded 7 infrastructure grants and 8 equipment-only grants. To view summaries of the funded projects, click the dropdowns below. The Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) program is a federal cooperative agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to state departments of agriculture to build resilience across the middle-of-the supply-chain and strengthen local and regional food systems by creating new revenue streams for their state's producers.
Funds will support expanded capacity for the aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling, and distribution of locally and regionally produced food products, including specialty crops, dairy, grains for human consumption, aquaculture, and other food products excluding meat and poultry. This program is intended to provide similar support to other programs which provided USDA funding for meat and poultry processing, but this program is focused on sectors other than meat and poultry.
For questions, please contact:
Holle Evert
Nebraska Department of Agriculture
PO Box 94947
Lincoln, NE 68509
402-310-8354
holle.evert@nebraska.gov
Tribal community kitchen expansion and modernization that will enhance food processing capabilities for tribal farmers and food businesses.
Developing a licensed and bonded custom crush facility to meet the growing needs of Nebraska's grape and fruit growers.
Constructing a cereal grain processing center creating a regional, value-added marketplace for wheat, barley, oats and other grains for human consumption. Veteran-owned.
Establishing a cutting-edge facility to process and package specialty crop grains and pulses used in consumer packaged goods.
Constructing a shared-use wash, pack, processing, and storage facility that provides urban growers a food-safe indoor place to process, aggregate and distribute locally grown produce.
Infrastructure expansion will increase food grade packaging equipment and distribution services available to local grain producers growing grains for human consumption.
Modernizing equipment and facilities will expand the capacity to process, pack, aggregate, and distribute locally grown foods.
Creating a network of neighborhood food hubs to provide urban growers equipment for processing, storage, and distribution.
Purchasing equipment to increase access to healthy foods in institutional settings by improving processing, aggregation, storage and creation of new value-added products.
Providing beginning and underserved farmers equipment access to process, store, and distribute locally grown foods.
Expanding commercial kitchen through purchase of equipment to support aggregation, processing, distribution, and value-added production of locally produced, healthy food for low-income, vulnerable families.
Purchasing equipment to construct a mobile dehulling and debearding unit to service small scale growers of specialty crop grains such as Kernza (R), barley, spelt, and buckwheat.
Increasing processing and storage capacity to create value-added dairy products, cheese, and ice cream.
Purchasing freezer and refrigerator to increase students access to locally grown foods through growth in Farm to School program.
Refrigerated transport truck which will serve to distribute fresh, locally grown vegetables to Hispanic markets and store fronts in eastern Nebraska. This project will expand connections between local producers and local Hispanic markets.