The agency is eliminating the Regional Food Business Centers, which help small farms and other food businesses build local infrastructure.
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The agency is eliminating the Regional Food Business Centers, which help small farms and other food businesses build local infrastructure.
July 15, 2025
July 15, 2025 – Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced today she’s cancelling a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program that runs the country’s Regional Food Business Centers, which support small farms and food businesses around the country.
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Organizations operating the 12 business centers have had their funding frozen since January and have been struggling to function as they sought answers from the USDA.
“The Biden Administration created multiple, massive programs without any long-term way to finance them. This is not sustainable for farmers who rely on these programs, and it flies in the face of Congressional intent,” Secretary Rollins said in an emailed statement sent to Congressional offices. “USDA will honor existing commitments for over 450 grants to farmers and food businesses to ensure planning decisions on the farm can continue as normal, however stakeholders should not plan on this program continuing.”
The small Regional Food Business Centers program was one of a suite of initiatives created by the Biden administration that were focused on rebuilding regional supply chains. The repaired infrastructure was intended to serve small family farms and push back on the increasing consolidation in the food system that has hollowed out rural communities.
The centers were designed to be hubs of business development activity, including the issuing of small “Business Builder Grants” to farms and food entrepreneurs in their areas. In an October 2024 progress report, Biden’s USDA reported that 2,800 individuals had received technical assistance, recipients had formed 1,500 new partnerships, and 287 businesses reported increased revenue as a result of the program.
But because the five-year grants were awarded in 2023, some centers are still in the process of getting up and running and allocating their funding. The USDA said that those centers that have not yet awarded grants—Great Lakes Midwest RFBC, Southeast RFBC, Delta RFBC, and Islands and Remote Areas RFBC—will see their contracts immediately terminated. However, a source within the USDA who asked for anonymity due to the risk of retaliation said that those centers would have already awarded grants but were unable to do so due to the funding freeze. For those that have awarded grants, USDA said they would honor the contracts and allow the centers to manage them through May 2026.
In a Civil Eats story on the freeze in funding published in April, individuals running the centers said the program was especially impactful because it was designed to link farms, businesses, and others in the local supply chain together to improve economic viability.
“If there ever is a program that really deserves bipartisan support across the spectrum, it’s this program,” Paul Freedman, the director of the Appalachia Regional Food Business Center, told Civil Eats. “Our middle name is business. Our goal here is to help businesses bring food to market so that it’s available at a fair price and so that producers, processors, and farmers can actually make a living doing this.” (Link to this post.)
This article has been updated with new detail on why some centers had not yet awarded grants in their regions.
July 30, 2025
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