MONEY

USDA funds to help agriculture, rural small businesses cut energy costs

Christopher Doering

cdoering@gannett.com

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday the department will offer more than $70 million to small businesses and agricultural producers in rural areas to make energy efficiency improvements or install renewable energy systems.

In this March 25, 2014 photo Red Angus cattle graze on native Big Bluestem grass at Daybreak Ranch near Highmore in central South Dakota. The main enterprise is a cow-calf operation on restored and native grasslands that make up a majority of the 8,000 acres at Daybreak. The habitat they provide supports clouds of pheasants, trophy bucks and other wildlife populations _ so abundant that they branched out into hosting hunters from across the country as a sideline. (AP Photo/Eric Landwehr) ORG XMIT: SDEL103

The funds, up to $12.3 million in grants and $57.8 million in loans, would be used to help farmers, ranchers and small business owners add renewable energy and efficiency technologies. Projects could include installing solar panels, wind mills or irrigation pumps. Grants would only cover 25 percent of the project's cost, with the recipient responsible for the rest.

"There is great interest in this program because it is so available to individual operations," Vilsack said in an interview. "It's a good program and reflective in the fact that we've seen a more than doubling of the farms that have embraced renewable energy and energy production on their farm."

The 2012 Census of Agriculture showed the number of farms utilizing renewable energy production has doubled in the last five years to more than 57,000.

USDA said the funds in Monday's announcement are from the department's Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) created in 2008 to help farmers boost energy efficiency and spur greater use of renewable energy.

The department said that since the start of the Obama Administration, REAP has supported more than 8,200 renewable energy and energy efficiency projects nationwide. During this same time, USDA has provided more than $264 million in grants and $212 million in loan guarantees to agricultural producers and rural small business owners.