The USDA Farm Service Agency has a fairly new way of working with organizations to help farmers.
Administrator, USDA Farm Service Agency, Val Dolcini visited California and met with a couple of organizations to discuss cooperative agreements. “We have lost a lot of staff over the last number of years due to budget reductions and so we look to organizations like Valley Small Business in Fresno and California Farmlink on the coast, to leverage the networks like those two organizations have,” Dolcini said. “In both of those cases we made small awards to them that will allow them do things like financial literacy workshops or outreach to under served farmers. So there are lots of things that third part organizations, nonprofits and agriculture stakeholders do and we just thought we would dedicate some of our funding to supporting that work.”
Organizations interested in learning more about cooperative agreements can contact Dolcini. “I would encourage them to contact me directly. I think folks from all over the country send me emails from time to time,” Dolcini said.