The US Department of Agriculture has launched a new fund that will invest millions in rural agriculture businesses, reports The Rural Blog.The Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund has the potential to pour as much as $100 million into rural food and agriculture. The fund also has high growth potential, the USDA said in a press release.
This is the fourth rural business investment initiative the USDA has introduced in the last two years. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the USDA has invested almost a quarter trillion dollars in loans and grants for rural communities, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Vilsack said he’s excited that this new fund will focus on precision agriculture and data management. He added: “As we become more sophisticated in agriculture, we need to become more precise, and we need information and data to be collected and analyzed properly.”
