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USDA will provide $466.5 million in FY 2024 funding to strengthen global food security through the McGovern-Dole and Food for Progress programs, Secretary Vilsack announced today.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is accepting fiscal year 2024 applications for the Food for Progress Program. This Program supports agricultural development activities in countries and emerging democracies that are committed to introducing and expanding free enterprise in the agricultural sector.

USDA and USAID will deploy $1 billion in Commodity Credit Corporation funding to purchase U.S.-grown commodities to provide emergency food assistance to people in need throughout the world.

FAS has designated Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Tunisia as priority countries for the Food for Progress program in FY 2024.

FAS helps minority farmers gain traction in international trade as well as growing and promoting their businesses.

FAS is working with university students in Tanzania on a pilot project to gather grassroots data on grain, oilseed, and cotton crops to help strengthen community agricultural systems and improve crop condition assessments with satellite imagery.

With research and development funds provided by the FAS Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops Program, FAS and ARS are working to produce compostable PLU labels. They are collaborating with the International Fresh Produce Association and Sinclair Systems International to meet the EU standards. The goal is to develop adhesives that are both food-safe and compostable. When achieved, this will allow American companies to export fruits and vegetables as usual while helping to decrease food waste and methane emissions.

Representatives from 32 U.S. agribusiness and farm organizations will join Deputy Agriculture Secretary Dr. Jewel Bronaugh for a trade mission to Nairobi, Kenya, and Zanzibar, Tanzania, Oct. 31 - Nov. 4.

USDA will invest $220 million in eight new school feeding projects that are expected to benefit more than a million children across 2,200 schools in food-insecure countries in Africa and East Asia, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today.