Puerto Rico beef co-op gets $21.2M from USDA to boost production
The funding is part of a $1.5 billion global allocation through the federal agency’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $21.2 million to Puerto Rico Beef Coop (Procarne, in Spanish) to develop its “Puerto Rico Climate-Smart Beef Cattle Initiative” to improve beef production on the island.
The funding is part of a $1.5 billion global allocation through the federal agency’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), “a partner-driven approach to conservation that funds solutions to natural resource challenges on agricultural land” that will benefit 92 projects.
Procarne’s initiative calls for “empowering historically underserved producers to address resource concerns in connection with greenhouse gas emissions, soil degradation, excess and insufficient water, water quality, wetlands conservation, pasture conditions, livestock productivity, and energy inefficiencies.”
“By focusing on both existing ranches and prime farmland currently abandoned or underused, the initiative seeks to improve these farms’ and farmers’ resilience and adaptability to climate change,” according to the project proposal.
Procarne submitted its proposal to the agency in May, when it was formally organized as an agricultural cooperative dedicated to maximizing livestock gestation, maintaining and raising animals for local consumption, and producing, manufacturing and selling related products. The cooperative’s main mission is to develop a food self-sustainability project.
The Salinas-based entity — which got the go-ahead from the Cooperative Development Commission (CDCoop, in Spanish) and the Department of Agriculture — has 12 partner-owners.
