The USDA awarded an additional $9.7 million to 13 grant projects to increase the consumption of domestic and organic agricultural products. The USDA said these funds were awarded through its Agricultural Marketing Service’s Organic Market Development Grant program.
The USDA said consumer demand for organically produced goods surpassed $69 billion in the U.S. in 2023, which is about 4% of the total U.S. food sales. The department also said there are more than 27,800 organic farms and businesses across the country.
The grant program has awarded $85 million to 106 projects in 36 states.
The USDA said it anticipates these new projects will benefit more than 119 million producers, buyers and consumers.
Funded projects include market development and promotion, simplified equipment-only and processing capacity expansion projects. Among them are The Turning Green, in Sausalito, Calif., intended to leverage the purchasing scale of the school food sector to grow the organic supply chain by bringing together school food networks, small underserved organic farmers and local agricultural support organizations. The USDA said the project will coordinate training and technical support to school food service teams and organic farmers to align planning, implementation, logistics and metrics to grow the sale of organic products to schools within the state.
“This final round of awards through the Organic Market Development Grant program marks an unprecedented investment into our nation’s organic industry and we will see the impacts of this funding for years to come,” Jenny Lester Moffitt, USDA undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said in a news release. “The projects awarded through this program are making great strides in expanding market opportunities for organic businesses and ensuring producers and processors have the infrastructure to meet the growing consumer demand for organic products.”
