White House Rural Council and six federal agencies have selected 26 communities to be part of a federal initiative called Local Foods, Local Places.
This initiative aims to provide technical support to integrate local food systems into community economic action plans.
The selected communities are located in 19 states including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
As part of this initiative, a team of federal agricultural, transportation, environmental, public health and regional economic experts will collaborate with communities to develop specific local food projects.
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesperson was quoted by Food Production Daily as saying: "Their proposal to develop a Regional Innovation Hub envisions an integrated facility to include a community kitchen, light processing, small business training and other services.
"This approach can also be called a local food network."
The nature of the project is different for each community.
USDA spokesperson added: "Out of the 26 identified projects, at least four are envisioning developing a local food processing facility of some sort."
The federal agencies have funded an initial amount of $800,000 for the project.
