Regional Food System Partnerships

RRFSP is a component of the Local Agricultural Marketing Program (LAMP). RFSP supports partnerships that brings together public and private resources to plan and develop local or regional food systems and encourages food economy viability and resilience. Through RFSP, AMS works together with partners to accelerate local or regional food system growth through increased access to local knowledge and networks. Partners will lead the scope determination of the regional food system to be developed, including goals, outreach objectives, and eligible activities to be carried out, while coordinating with AMS to receive technical and financial assistance.

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.