Skip to main content
HR 5764 115th Congress House Agriculture and Food Agricultural practices and innovations Agricultural research Performance measurement Research administration and funding

Growing Value-Added Economies Act

Introduced: May 10, 2018 Introduced by: Luján, Ben Ray Democratic · New Mexico See on congress.gov
 Everywhere this bill has been 3 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Jun 22, 2018
Referred to the Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy, and Credit.
May 10, 2018
Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.
May 10, 2018
Introduced in House
 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Growing Value-Added Economies Act

This bill amends the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000 to reauthorize and modify the Department of Agriculture (USDA) Value-Added Producer Grants Program. (The program provides grants for the development and marketing of value-added agricultural products, which are products that have increased in value due to processing.)

The bill modifies the program to require USDA to:

  • establish independent external review panels to review and evaluate each eligible application based on merit and relevance,
  • develop and implement an outreach and technical assistance strategy, and
  • provide for periodic evaluations that measure the impact of the program and the impact of projects on achieving the purposes of the program.

The bill also: (1) provides mandatory funding for the program; and (2) prohibits more than 5% of the total annual funding for the program from being used for administrative expenses, program evaluation, outreach, and technical assistance.

What's happening now June 22, 2018

Referred to the Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy, and Credit.

 Committees of jurisdiction 2