Western North Carolina Receives $1.9 Million in Recovery Act Funding

Southern Research Station Awards ARRA Grant to Land of Sky Regional Council

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack recently announced that the USDA. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS), located in Asheville, NC will receive $1.9 million in funding to create a cooperative marketing network in Western North Carolina that will put unemployed people back to work and stimulate the local economy. Secretary Vilsack made the announcement Sept. 9, 2009.

"The Forest Service has been assigned a key role in creating thousands of private sector jobs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)," said SRS Director Jim Reaves. "These Recovery Act funds, which target forest health protection projects, will be vital to Western North Carolina communities as many timber and non-timber forest operators are either out of work or only working a few days a week. The funding will enable some forest operators and landowners to find employment through the creation of cooperative marketing networks that will help connect producers with consumers - just as local food organizations have done with great success in our region for many years."

Working with a contractor, SRS will use the funds to build organizational networks that will position forest operators to be more prosperous as their markets recover. The project will employ persons working with timber and non-timber forest products as well as marketing specialists, community organizers and forest products advisors.

Some Possible Approaches include:

• Connecting local producers of forest products with local consumers of forest products.
• Training producers to be more effective in sustainable production and local marketing.
• Assisting producers in exploring niche markets and in diversifying their forest products operations.
• Supporting existing forest products marketing cooperatives and organizing new ones where demand exists among forest producers and forest product consumers.
• Supporting cooperation among forest product practitioners, such as using shared equipment or facilities, when a formal marketing cooperative may not be needed.
• Arranging opportunities for improving communications among forest product practitioners.

The goal is to provide technical and financial assistance to help care for lands owned by state and local governments, private organizations and private individuals.

SRS expects to issue a request for proposals within the next month to seek an organization to manage these funds and to work with a wide range of Western North Carolina organizations, forest workers and landowners to ensure funds are distributed as quickly as possible and that the most negatively economically impacted communities are targeted.

A listing of funded ARRA projects can be found at www.recovery.gov. Information about the SRS Request for Proposals can be found at http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov. The site will also provide a link for submitting applications and periodic updates on the progress of this project.

To review what the Southern Appalachian Work Group on Sustainability accomplished, click here.

We will update this webpage regularly as more information becomes available.