ANNAPOLIS, MD (July 19, 2010) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $121,445 in matching grants to Maryland supporting two agricultural market research and demonstration projects. These grants, provided under the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP), will explore new, innovative and results-oriented approaches to marketing U.S. food and agricultural products and to improve the efficiency and performance of the marketing system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are delighted to receive these USDA grant awards,\u201d said Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance. \u201cThese projects will enable our State to increase our \u2018buy local\u2019 initiatives and develop more efficient and market-oriented ways to benefit our agricultural sector and support our local economy to keep Maryland smart, green and growing.”<\/p>\n
The first USDA grant awarded to Maryland is $20,825 to the Maryland Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the University of Maryland and Maryland farmers\u2019 market managers, to assess the economic impact of Maryland farmers\u2019 markets, identify ways to expand the customer base and increase sales at farmers\u2019 markets, and explore the feasibility of forming a statewide farmers\u2019 market association.<\/p>\n
The second grant is for $100,620. It is awarded to the University of Maryland School of Nursing, in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Future Harvest\/Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission, the Maryland Organic Food and Farming Association, and others, to encourage increased use of locally-produced sustainable protein foods such as beef, pork, poultry, dairy, eggs, and seafood, in Maryland health care facilities and institutions.<\/p>\n
FSMIP funds a wide range of applied research projects that address barriers, challenges, and opportunities in marketing, transporting, and distributing U.S. food and agricultural products domestically and internationally. Seventeen other states also received grants, making the total amount awarded in grants $1.3 million.<\/p>\n
###<\/p>\n
Follow MDA on Twitter @MdAgDept<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ANNAPOLIS, MD (July 19, 2010) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $121,445 in matching grants to Maryland supporting two agricultural market research and demonstration projects. These grants, provided under the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP), will explore new, innovative and results-oriented approaches to marketing U.S. food and agricultural products and to improve the efficiency Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1914,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions\/1914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}