Over the course of the Obama Administration, USDA has invested close to $1 billion in 40,000 local food businesses and infrastructure projects.

Learn more about food hubs and see if there are ways to become an equipment partner to these operations as well as small acreage farms.

As the market for local foods continues to expand, the customer base for many rural lifestyle dealers includes direct-to-consumer (DTC) farms. Comparing data from USDA’s 2007 and 2012 (most recent data) Census of Agriculture show DTC farm operations with DTC sales of food increased from 116,733 to 144,530. At the same time, the number of farmers’ markets grew to 8,268 in 2014, up 180% from 2006.