Congress Announces $600K for UTRGV for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers
WASHINGTON - Congressmen Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar today announced that U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded $600,000 to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018. This funding will assist the Frontera Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Project which supports Hispanics and veterans in South Texas with development and sustainability in the farming and ranching market.
This project will provide outreach, training, technical assistance, and mentorship to Hispanic and Veteran Beginning Farmers and Ranchers (BFRs), farmworkers, and NGOs in a 44-county border region of Texas and Southern New Mexico. The service area has the highest numbers and greatest concentrations of Hispanic farmers in the U.S.
Strategic sub-award partners include: Texas/Mexico Border Coalition CBO, La Semilla Food Center, and National Center for Appropriate Technology. Additional partners include an innovative partner with SCORE Chapters, as initiated by the Secretary of Agriculture. Partners supporting farm-and-ranch entrepreneurship include Small Business Development Centers, Veterans Business Outreach Center, and the Texas Rural Cooperative Center.
This project is relevant to the primary goal of BFRDP: to train, assist, and mentor Limited-Resource Hispanic and Veteran BFRs to enter and improve their success in agriculture.
Supporting objectives include:
- Collaborate with NGO partners to recruit BFRs and promote program awareness.
- Customize training and assistance to the specific needs of each BFR individual or group.
- Contribute to the sustainability of Hispanic and Veteran BFRs by providing mentorship.
- Condition Hispanic and Veteran BFRs to be sustainable through innovative approaches.
- Coordinate the efforts of project partners to ensure effective governance.
Congressmen Gonzalez and Cuellar will continue to support agriculture and institutions of higher education, like UTRGV, in Central and South Texas.