If you are getting out and about on the nice Spring days you may have found yourself among the beauty of our rural areas. Our DHS team spends a good deal of their time in rural places in Minnesota and enjoys the change of atmosphere from the Twin Cities. However, just because a place is not a big city doesn’t mean the people who live there aren’t dealing with the same issues as the city folks. Having resources available to make progress or change is important to our smaller communities and today’s pick wants to provide some help to our rural neighbors.

This week’s pick: The financial services provider for agriculture and rural America, AgStar, has grants for rural feasibility studies. The AgStar Fund for Rural America grants range between $1,000 and $5,000.
Eligible projects will entail:

• Economic assessment - suitable infrastructure, facilities, labor or raw material sources
• Business and market analysis
• Cost analysis
• Financial projections

Projects must be located in rural areas of AgStar’s territory. Implemented projects will create new permanent jobs that result in the economic development of a rural area.

You can direct questions about this opportunity to Jody Bloemke via email at jody.bloemke@agstar.com or you can look at details of the grant by clicking here.