Grant promotes statewide collaboration with Franklin County CDC
Published: 2/7/2021 6:00:06 PM
GREENFIELD — The Franklin County Community Development Corporation (CDC) was recently awarded a $895,000 Agriculture Innovation Center grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), that will allow it to collaborate with food and farm businesses statewide.
“(The program)’s goal is to help farmers add value to their production,” said Franklin County CDC Executive Director John Waite.
Instead of just growing and selling peppers, for example, farmers would make peppers into a wholesale product, such as pepper jam.
“The grant is to provide them the business planning to help them do that,” he said. “(Franklin County CDC) is going to hire two people, who will be available throughout the state, that have experience in financial and marketing plans. A lot of farmers, they know how to farm and they do that really well, but they may not have the business experience to create and sell products.”