Agricultural News
Ag Secretary Selects Oklahoma Project for Value-Added Grant
Wed, 01 May 2013 19:14:07 CDT
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that an Oklahoma agriculture producer has been selected as a recipient of the USDA Rural Development Value-added Producer Grant (VAPG) program.
The VAPG program is designed to help agricultural producers add value to their raw commodity prior to sale. This can include the development of marketing strategies or the development of business plans for the viable production of products from agricultural commodities.
USDA Rural Development is funding an array of projects involving locally produced and marketed foods. These include cheese, wine, reduced-cholesterol dairy products, produce, packaged poultry, pork and beef products, and a variety of processed or prepared foods from locally grown fruits and vegetables.
The awards announced today include 11 projects involving bio-based products. They include grants to convert: corn stover to anhydrous ammonia; miscanthus fiber, wood and goat manure into biochar and enhanced compost; and sorghum to electricity and fertilizer.
The conversion of sorghum to electricity and fertilizer will conducted by KRU Agrogas in Ada, Oklahoma. The farmer will use the $300,000 matching grant to produce electricity and fertilizers. Their project will take sorghum and process it through a digester to produce the electricity and then sell leftover materials as fertilizer.
"This support will benefit rural businesses and the communities where the recipients are located," Vilsack said. "These awards also will advance USDA's goals to develop a bio-based economy and support local and regional food systems."
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