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USDA announces more funding for Climate Smart Commodities Partnerships

The USDA has announced another 325 million dollars in funding for the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities effort.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says this second round will fund 71 more projects and bring total program investment to 3.1 billion dollars across 141 total projects.  Vilsack says the program will work to expand markets for American climate-smart commodities, leverage greenhouse gas benefits from production, and provide meaningful benefits to producers including small and underserved producers.

Vilsack says three examples of newly-funded projects are a study of buffalo production through the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council, an agrivoltaic technology study co-locating crops and solar panels through the University of Texas Rio Grand Valley, and a study of growing and marketing organic seed and field crops by Marbleseed, formerly known as the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service.