        |
Cooperative Services
The goal of the Cooperative Services program of USDA Rural Development is to help rural residents form new cooperative businesses and improve the operations of existing cooperatives.To accomplish this, Cooperative Services
- provides a wide range of assistance for people interested in forming new cooperatives
- provides technical assistance to existing cooperatives facing specific problems or challenges
- conducts research to provide a knowledge base to help cooperatives deal with changing markets and business trends
- produces information
products to promote public understanding of cooperatives
Rural Cooperative Development Grants
- grants can be made to nonprofit corporations and institutions of higher education for the purpose of establishing and operating centers for rural cooperative development.
- the program is
used to facilitate the creation or retention of jobs in rural areas
through the development of new rural cooperatives, value-added processing
and rural businesses.
Value-Added Development Grant Program
- provides grants for independent agricultural producers to enter into value-added activities.
- application can be for either technical assistance (feasibility studies, business plans, market studies, etc.) or working capital. Application can be for one or the other but not both.
- maximum award per grant is $500,000.
- grant rules and
application deadlines are published each year in the Federal Register
under a Notice of Funding Availability.