October 14, 2020
Local food systems and direct-to-consumer marketing through farmers markets, farm stands, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) programs have flourished across the country over the past several decades. Once viewed as a fad or niche part of the food sector, local food systems and direct marketing agriculture are now an integral part of American agriculture and […]
April 22, 2020
Editor’s Note: The RFP has now been published and can be accessed below. We will continue to update this post as more information and resources become available. Last updated 4/27 at 5:02pm Late on a Friday night (4/17), Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the highly anticipated plan for how the U.S. Department of Agriculture […]
March 31, 2020
Local and regional food economy entrepreneurs and organizations received some long-awaited news earlier in March – the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) finally released the Request for Applications (RFA) for the Regional Food Systems Partnership (RFSP) Program. RFSP is a new program that supports foodshed-level approaches to developing regional food economies. […]
March 24, 2020
On March 9, 2020 USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced the availability of $27 million in funding for the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP). FMLFPP has two subprograms – the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) and the Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) – with a separate Request for Applications (RFA) for each […]
March 23, 2020
The following economic impact assessment was compiled on March 18, 2020 for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition by Dawn Thilmany, Becca Jablonski, Debra Tropp, Blake Angelo, and Sarah Low. More information about the authors can be found at the end of the document. Last updated March 21, 2020. Bottom Line Across key local and regional […]
February 6, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Reana KovalcikNational Sustainable Agriculture CoalitionP: 202-547-5754, E: rkovalcik@sustainableagriculture.net National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Sets 2020 Policy Priorities Washington, DC, February 4, 2020 – Last week, representatives from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s (NSAC) 130+ member organizations voted on a final set of policy and funding priorities to guide the Coalition’s work through 2020. “This collaborative priority […]
December 20, 2019
This week, after months of delay, Congress passed a much-anticipated deal to fund the government through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2020. FY 2020 runs through September 30, 2020. The $1.4 trillion package of discretionary spending bills, which was divided up into two “minibuses”, was finally delivered this week after months of rigorous advocacy […]
December 17, 2019
The final appropriations package builds upon the sustainable agriculture community’s hard-fought farm bill wins and delivers much-needed support to family farmers across the country at a time when good news is increasingly hard to come by.
December 3, 2019
Editor’s Note: On December 11, 2019 USDA Rural Development announced the availability of at least $37 million and a 90 day application period for VAPG grants. Stay tuned, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) will publish more information, including its updated Farmers’ Guide to Applying for the Value-Added Producer Grant Program in the new year. The […]
November 1, 2019
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and National Farm to School Network (NFSN) jointly praised the effort to highlight the important relationship between farmers, schools, and our nation’s children. The organizations, which work closely together to advance federal policies that further farm to school connections and the socioeconomic benefits that those relationships confer, also underscored the opportunity for Senators to further support these efforts by including the Farm to School Act (S. 2026) and the Kids Eat Local Act (S. 1817) in the next Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization (CNR).