USDA awards $230 million to Minnesota in loans, grants for infrastructure, food supply chain improvements

Krystal Frasier KSTP

Millions of dollars in both grants and loans are headed to Minnesota in order to help improve rural infrastructure and support the state’s food supply chain.

Early Monday morning, Tom Vilsack, the secretary for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced more than $230 million in funds have been awarded to Minnesota as part of the Biden administration’s “Investing in America” agenda.

Vilsack met with producers and business leaders at The Good Acre on Monday morning, where he highlighted more than three dozen agriculture-related investments. Other investments will provide funding to help rural cooperatives and utilities create and improve electric infrastructure as well as increase reliability and security for the electrical grid and also provide clean drinking water and sanitary wastewater systems in rural parts of the state, according to Vilsack’s office.

The funds are being provided through the following programs:

  • Electric Loan Program;
  • Water and Waste Disposal Direct Loan and Grant Program;
  • Water and Waste Disposal Loan Guarantees Program;
  • Community Facilities Program;
  • Business and Industry Loan Guarantee Program;
  • Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant Program;
  • Electric Infrastructure Loan and Loan Guarantee Program;
  • Water & Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program;
  • Community Facilities Loan and Grant Program;
  • Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program;
  • Meat and Poultry Production Expansion Program;
  • Rural Economic Development Loan.

A full list of loan and grant recipients can be found in the document at the bottom of this article but includes $4.1 million for a beef and pork meat-processing facility in Waubun; $1.5 million for a mobile meat slaughtering and processing trailer; a $2.8 million loan for street repairs in Silver Lake; a load of $82.4 million for Lake Country Power to build and make improvements for hundreds of miles of power lines, as well as the creation of a smart grid technology.

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