Regional Food System Partnership Fiscal Year 2026

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), requests applications for the 2026 Fiscal Year (FY) Regional Food System Partnerships (RFSP) grant program. RFSP purpose is to support partnerships that connect public and private resources to plan and develop local and regional food systems.RFSP is part of the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) umbrella program. AMS welcomes applications that meet LAMP goals (see section 3.1) to support the development, coordination, and expansion of direct producer-to-consumer marketing, local and regional food markets and enterprises, and value-added agricultural products.Approximately $4.71 million is available to fund applications under this solicitation. In FY2025, AMS funded 7 (6.5%) of the eligible applications received an awarded a total of $4,712,934.This announcement identifies the eligibility criteria for RFSP projects and applicants, and the application forms and associated instructions needed to apply for an RFSP grant. AMS will award these grants competitively to eligible applicants proposing high quality projects that meet the purpose and requirements of the program. All applications will be reviewed using merit and evaluation procedures.

See Section 2.2 Eligibility Section of the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for a full list of eligible applicants and eligible entities (partners).

Applications will be evaluated based on the criteria established for the program and described in the RFA. The most current RFA is available via Grants.gov or www.ams.usda.gov/grants.

A 25% cash match is required of the total Federal portion of the grant.

Fiscal year 2025: An RFSP project continues to engage diverse stakeholders along the food chain (institutions, producers, aggregators, and support organizations) in moving more local food through local institutions through: working groups focused on Land Access/Shared Assets, Value Chain Coordination, and Institutional Community of Practice; in-person trainings across Oregon for farmers, ranchers, fisherman, food hubs and food businesses regarding accessing institutional markets; in-person trainings for institutional food buyers on best practice for local food purchasing; and providing tailored support to producers/manufacturers for value added product development for institutions. To strengthen education and collaboration partnership led a four week course on understanding Value Chain Coordination for food hub; and identified 177 qualified institutions for sales potential in Oregon and made contact with 84 of those, resulting in sales with 26 institutions totaling approximately $70,000 in sales in just the last few months of the project.