Today, October 27, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the recipients of the 2010 Community Food Projects grants, administered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).  The grants are intended to help build community food systems and fight hunger and food insecurity in low-income communities.

The $4.8 million in grant awards went to 27 organizations across the country for projects including food policy council training, urban agriculture, new farmers on preservation farmland, promotion of native food sovereignty, youth, urban and rural food production projects and community food assessments.

The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), an NSAC member organization, received one of this year’s awards for “FoodCorps for Rural Montana.”  The project will help rural communities develop their own solutions to food insecurity by connecting local farmers with rural schools serving a high percentage of free and reduced price lunches.  In so doing, the project will increase the nutritious foods in the diet of low-income students and boost local agricultural economies, countering the poverty at the root of food insecurity for many of Montana’s farm communities.

Community Food Projects have been funded in nearly 300 communities in 48 states over the program’s 14-year history.