Statement from our Rural Development Team

Ensuring that rural Americans have quality housing, good jobs, clean drinking water and reliable, modern utility services has been, and remains a top priority.

Our goal at USDA Rural Development is to help rural Americans live longer, fuller lives. We accomplish this by administering a number of programs to help rural residents care for their families and ensure that the businesses they start and the communities in which they live have the best chance to grow and thrive.

Our state and local office staff play a vital part in ensuring the success of these programs. They work hard to make sure the resources of USDA are managed in an efficient manner and that our programs bring the maximum benefit to each rural resident and community.

Through our programs - housing, business-cooperatives, and community programs - we are leading a statewide effort to instill in rural communities the confidence to make use of local knowledge and expertise to create sustainable economic and community growth from within.

Our goal is to foster an atmosphere of interdependence, where communities have the resources and confidence they need to develop the partnerships necessary to ensure sensible development.

The diverse citizenry, businesses, cooperatives, community/Tribal organizations, and local development organizations make up a substantial and formidable component of rural Montana where tremendous community capacity already exists.

With our support, technical assistance, and nurturing, this capacity increases every year, thus allowing sustainable growth to take place, with the community leading the development process. Our outreach efforts are designed to build upon community capacity efforts that already exist, and provide community/Tribal leaders with the tools and resources necessary to make things happen.

USDA Rural Development employees are working in partnership with the private sector and local and state governments to make certain available resources are invested wisely and have the largest impact possible on improving the quality of life for rural residents. We are proud that despite staff reductions and office consolidations over the last several years, USDA Rural Development is efficiently and effectively serving more rural people than ever before.

By looking through our web pages, you'll find out more about USDA Rural Development programs and how they help people in Montana. After reviewing the information we've provided, we hope you'll have a better idea of how USDA Rural Development is fulfilling its mission to create new opportunity for rural Americans.