The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $14.2 million in 52 grants that support urban agriculture and innovative production, including a project to improve the urban agriculture landscape in Lorain, Ohio. This investment, which includes American Rescue Plan Act funds, will enable grant recipients like Lorain's "Food Forward Lorain Initiative" to increase food production and access in economically distressed communities, provide job training and education, and allow partners to develop business plans and zoning proposals. These grants build on $26.3 million in projects funded since 2020, and are a part of USDA’s broad support for urban agriculture through its Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP).
“This competitive grant program has already had tremendous impacts for communities across the country, including right here in Ohio, and we look forward to co-investing in bold ideas to support agriculture in the urban landscape while also empowering local communities to provide fresh, healthful foods,” said John Wilson, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) State Conservationist in Ohio. “This grant program is part of our broad support for urban agriculture, local and regional food systems and underserved communities.”
The Food Forward Lorain Initiative will work to create, improve, and expand access to healthy food for economically distressed neighborhoods and families by improving the urban agriculture landscape to support additional urban farming operations .
Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Grants
The Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (UAIP) competitive grants program supports a wide range of activities through two types of grants, planning projects and implementation projects. Today’s announced recipients include 18 planning projects and 34 implementation projects. The grant to Food Forward Lorain Initiative is for a planning project.
Planning projects will initiate or expand efforts of urban and suburban farmers, gardeners, citizens, government officials, schools and other stakeholders. These grantees will target areas of food access, education, business and start-up costs for new farmers, urban forestry, and policies related to zoning and other needs of urban production. Having more capacity to gather, process, move and store food in different geographic areas of the country will provide more options for producers to create value-added products and sell locally, which will support new economic opportunities and job creation in underserved communities. Additional regional capacity also will give consumers more options to buy locally produced products—helping ensure food is available to consumers—and reduce the climate impact of our food supply chain.
Implementation projects will accelerate urban, indoor and other agricultural practices that serve multiple farmers and improve local food access. They may support infrastructure needs, emerging technologies, education and urban farming policy implementation.
In total, projects were funded in 27 states. For a complete list of grant recipients and project summaries, visit Urban Agriculture | USDA.
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