THE CNMI Division of Agriculture is hosting an information session on April 5 at 10 a.m. at its Kagman office regarding the Resilient Food System Infrastructure or RFSI program, Charles Aiseam, the RFSI state coordinator, said.
The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service. According to a USDA release, the RFSI program has $2 million in competitive grant funding for projects designed to build resilience “across the middle of the supply chain.”
Aiseam said the deadline to apply for funds is April 29. He will discuss the program at the information session.
According to USDA, selected projects will “target underserved food producers and processors,” and will aim to improve the availability of value-added products and processing capacity, enhance infrastructure, and/or increase access to locally produced food products to consumers.
In March, Variety spoke to Saleh Azizi, who was on island to present about the projects that could be funded through the RFSI program.
Using the USDA slaughterhouse facility on Tinian as an example, Azizi said the people there had expressed a need for a butcher shop, which could hypothetically be supported by the RFSI program.
For more information, call the CNMI Division of Agriculture at (670) 256-3318/9 or email cnmirfsi@gmail.com/.
