Cost-share grants totaling $463K awarded to Iowa farmers, small businesses, non-profits

By KAALTV
Credit: MGN

(ABC 6 News) – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig announced that the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has awarded 28 Choose Iowa cost-share grants to Iowa farmers, small businesses and non-profits totaling $463,000.

The Choose Iowa cost-share grants were created to assist Iowa farmers, businesses and non-profits with their efforts to increase or diversify their agricultural product offerings, expand markets and shorten the supply chain.

The grants will support a wide variety of projects, including cider production from Iowa grown apples, fruit and vegetable processing, cold storage for meat, expanded processing of dairy products, hydroponic lettuce and microgreens, Iowa grown flowers, beer production from Iowa honey and many more.

“Choose Iowa is about connecting consumers to the great products that Iowans are growing, raising and processing in communities of all sizes across our state,” said Secretary Naig. “As Choose Iowa builds into an easily recognizable brand that can be used by farmers, producers, processors, farmers markets, food retailers and many others in the supply chain, these cost-share grants will help build capacity to meet the growing consumer demand for Iowa products.”

Some of the Choose Iowa grant allocations that were awarded in the ABC 6 News viewing area include:

  • Kittleson Brothers in St. Ansgar – $14,000: Expand cold storage and improve potato sizing and processing. Total project budget: $28,000
  • Twisted River Farm in Mitchell – $6,000: Establish an on-farm store, enhance vegetable processing and increase cold storage capacity. Total project budget: $13,000.
  • Mossycup Farms in Clear Lake – $4,173: Upgrade on-farm commercial kitchen processing capacity from small batch to larger scale production and increase farm store capacity to offer additional value-added products. Total project budget: $8,347.49.

These cost-share dollars leverage additional private investment. The highly competitive grant application process has yielded grant requests totaling nearly $3.3 million during the first two years of the program, a number far exceeding available funding.

For more information and to view all of the 28 Choose Iowa grant recipients, CLICK HERE.