USDA Rural Development Offers Variety Of Programs To Help Rural

USDA Rural Development is committed to helping improve the economy and quality of life in rural America. Through their many programs, they help rural Americans in many ways, including loans, grants and loan guarantees. These help create jobs and support economic development and essential services such as housing; health care; first responder services and equipment; and water, electric and communications infrastructure.

Rural Development also promotes economic development by supporting loans to businesses through banks, credit unions and community-managed lending pools. They offer technical assistance and information to help agricultural producers and cooperatives get started and improve the effectiveness of their operations.

Technical assistance is also provided to help communities undertake community empowerment programs and help rural residents buy or rent safe, affordable housing and make health and safety repairs to their homes.

The Rural Community Development Initiative Grant offered by USDA Rural Development is available to public bodies, nonprofit organizations and federally recognized Tribes. This program provides funding to help non-profit housing and community development organizations support housing, community facilities and community and economic development projects in rural areas.

The Rural Economic Development Loan (REDL) and Grant (REDG) programs provide funding to rural projects through local utility organizations. Under the REDLoan program, USDA provides zero interest loans to local utilities, which they, in turn, pass through to local businesses (ultimate recipients), for projects that will create and retain employment in rural areas. The ultimate recipients repay the lending utility directly. The utility is then responsible for repayment to the Agency.

Under the REDGrant program, USDA provides grant funds to local utility organizations to use the funding to establish revolving loan funds (RLF). Loans are made from the revolving loan funds to projects that will create or retain rural jobs. When the revolving loan fund is terminated, the grant is repaid to the Agency.

For agricultural, USDA Rural Development has the Value Added Producer Grant which helps agricultural producers enter into value-added activities related to the processing and/or marketing of bi-based, value-added products. Generating new products, creating and expanding marketing opportunities and increasing producer income are the goals of this program. Also available is the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) renewable energy and energy efficiency. This program provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements. Agricultural producers may also apply for new energy efficient equipment and new system loans for agricultural production and processing.

Rural Business Development Grants (RBDG) and Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance both provide training assistance. RBDG is a competitive grant designed to support targeted technical assistance, training and other activities leading to the development or expansion of small and emerging private business in rural areas that have fewer than 50 employees and less than $1 million in gross revenue. Programmatic activities are separated into enterprise or opportunity type grant activities. The Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance provides loans and grants to Microenterprise Development Organizations (MDOs) to provide microloans for microenterprise startups and growth through a Rural Microloan Revolving Fund while also providing training and technical assistance to microloan borrowers and micro entrepreneurs.

For more information on USDA Rural Development and all of the available programs, visit http://www.rd.usda.gov/.