Use our funding to support rural and locally owned businesses rather than giant corporations.
Use Federal Dollars to Support Rural Economies
- Update federal procurement rules to prioritize buying local and from small businesses and companies that provide good jobs.1
- The Biden Administration took action to strengthen local food systems and get healthy, locally grown food to communities by creating new programs like the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA) and the Local Food for Schools Program (LFS).
- The Trump Administration cancelled the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program.
- Invest in local and regional food systems, small-scale meat processing grants, and programs like the Local School Food Purchasing Program.
- Implement the 10-20-30 where agencies invest at least 10% of appropriated funds in persistent poverty counties where 20% or more of the population has been living below the poverty line for the last 30 years.2
- Treat Tribal governments with equality and fairness, ensure Tribal members have better access to federal programs and increase available resources for Tribal infrastructure and economic development, consistent with the federal trust and treaty responsibility. This includes enacting reforms to explicitly include Tribal parity in all aspects of the Farm Bill and expanding opportunities for Tribal communities to self-govern.
- Use federal resources to avoid and mitigate disasters, as well as support rural areas to recover and rebuild.
Notes
- See the Federal Good Food Purchasing Coalition, Local Agriculture Market Program, Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program, and the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program.
- Eighty-six percent of persistent poverty counties have entirely rural populations. While some federal funding programs use this practice, passing the Targeting Resources to Communities in Need Act of 2021-2022 would expand its use across agencies.