Posted on 04/22/2014 12:00:04 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday a new $150 million program designed to provide investment capital to help small agriculture-related business in rural areas with cash needed to expand. […]
The USDA traditionally has offered guaranteed loans or direct loans for rural businesses. The creation of the Rural Business Investment Company is a new way for USDA to establish a licensing procedure that makes Farm Credit bank funds available as investment capital. The banks cannot directly hold ownership stakes in companies through capital investment.
Under the new program the government has created a new business entity, the Rural Business Investment Company, to receive money from Farm Credit banks and set up an investment capital fund. The money will be managed by Advantage Capital Partners, a New-Orleans-based firm with experience in investing in small rural businesses. Advantage Capital will choose the companies in which the new funds will be invested. …
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Complete with their own SWAT teams, etc.
When government is involved there is always red tape associated with their benevolence.
Government controls healthcare, student loans, land, so why not our food. That would be the logical next step.
Excellent observation, lucky american. Also worth noting that this is another area in which fedgov has absolutely NO Constitutional authority.
Time to take back the country. Dumping the USDA would be a good start.
To accept Government ‘money’ in any form is to also accept Government controls on your business and farms and to sign away certain of your privacy rights.
Bingo.
There is always free cheese in the trap.
Not sure if it is _this_ specific program, but our county has an incubator for food-based businesses. One that I know of is producing fermented vegetables. The initial total grant was for $400k. Commercial kitchens and processing facilities are available, as is expert advice on marketing.
An organic farmer I know has been trying to find an outlet for their less-than-perfect veggies and small chickens. She has an idea for an organic gourmet chicken pot pie. She has not been able to get either University culinary/food science classes to create one (when presented with the challenge, they came up with many ideas, none of which was a pot pie)nor could she get one of the incubator companies interested. As she explained her goals to one worker, his response was “I don’t see where there is any profit.”
While I don’t think this is some sort of collectivization plan, it may be a way for the funders to control the final product in terms of food PC.
Farm to shelf edibles appears, to this observer, to be a very difficult business. There are numerous requirements for legal plants that are expensive and most of the folks I’ve met in these enterprises are not really marketers. My ag producer friends who sell direct to restaurants or established processors, spend an awful lot of time traveling to meetings. This usually means that they need more managers and workers on their farm and that they have to spend lots of time on the phone or on their tablet. They went into the business out of a love for growing food, not a love for management.
his response was “I don’t see where there is any profit.”
I worked with an organic chicken business. Cost of goods was greater that selling price for 3 years in a row and then there was the general operating expense. But the owner was a great marketer and liar and able to get grants which let the business show a profit on tax return. Our stupid state govt gave here another $200,000. She eventually sold it to some fools in the East.......................
She has not been able to get either University culinary/food science classes to create one
I so agree. The person in question is a trained chef with a culinary degree and is totally capable of doing this herself. I think she wanted to save her own time and money by approaching the University.
Again, I agree.
People see other businesses getting huge grants and decide to try it themselves. Most of the time, there is some collusion involved of which the applicant is unaware.
There is a huge difference between a successful production operation and a commercial food processor. Both have reams of paperwork involved and many, many regulations, but the processed food is worse in terms of both.
Years ago, I had an idea for some dry mixes and consulted with a dietician who did quality control work for processors. Even for something requiring no cooking and no ingredients that could be vectors of disease, it just didn’t work out on paper. Lots of huge lot buys, fiddling measurements, repetitive packaging and then the crux of it all, the marketing. I couldn’t find the profit, either.
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