Powering America with a More Sustainable Energy Future

#USDAResults Chapter 10

This month, we’re celebrating hard working rural Americans, who through grit, resolve and continuous innovation have worked together to put the rural economy back on course. USDA has supported these communities along the way, investing in solutions that help bring jobs, infrastructure and opportunity back to small towns across the country.

As part of that strategy, we’ve been working closely with farmers and ranchers to make investments that spur a new generation of renewable fuels and biobased products. A new USDA report released last week shows that in 2014, the biobased products industry contributed $393 billion and 4.2 million jobs to America’s recovering economy. The report also indicates that the sector grew from 2013 to 2014, creating or supporting an additional 220,000 jobs and $24 billion over that period. You can read the full report here. As one of the four pillars USDA has identified to boost our country’s rural economy, USDA has invested heavily in growing the biobased economy.

At the same time, we’re working on regional solutions to alleviate long-term poverty, which disproportionately affects rural areas. In an effort to address this, last week USDA unveiled an innovative partnership with community development organizations from across the country, providing $401 million in funds to recipients with a track record of successful programs that help reduce poverty in some of the nation’s most isolated rural communities. Twenty-six community development organizations have been approved to draw upon the funding to help local entities build, acquire, maintain or renovate essential community facilities. The funds also can be used for capacity building and to finance essential community services, such as education, health care and infrastructure. Many of the projects will be in some of the nation’s poorest rural areas, such as communities in Appalachia, the colonias along the U.S./Mexico border and in the Mississippi Delta region. You can find a list of the projects here.

Join us throughout the month of October as we tell the story of a proud legacy of rural innovation and its contribution to a new generation of renewable energy and biobased products; increasing American energy security, giving American consumers environmentally friendly choices, cutting our carbon pollution, strengthening America’s economy and with it the small towns and rural communities that so many call home. Follow along on usda.gov, on the USDA blog and by using #USDAResults, or catch up on Chapter X on our Medium site.

Throughout the month we’ll tell the story of a proud legacy of rural innovation and its contribution to a new generation of renewable energy and biobased products.