The Rio Grande Colonias USDA Regional Food Business Center is now open to clients, inviting small and mid-sized food businesses in Texas and New Mexico to apply for financial and technical assistance to expand their market reach.
Grants are available for not only farms, but any business within the food supply chain – from storage to packaging to distribution to retail.
The five-year, $30 million project is one of 12 regional food business centers funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase access to local food sources. The Rio Grande center prioritizes counties with colonias in South Texas and along the U.S.-Mexico border, including El Paso.
More than 90,000 people in El Paso County live in colonias – neighborhoods that may lack adequate services and are typically built in rural areas that weren’t zoned for residential use. Colonias comprise mostly Hispanic, low-income residents.
This month the Rio Grande center launched two new grants that business owners can apply for at online at rgcolonias.org:
- Frontera Farm and Food Business Grant: Awards of up to $50,000 and technical assistance for businesses in the priority counties. Grants available year-round with applicants accepted on a rolling basis.
- Business Builder Farm and Food Grant: Awards of up to $100,000 for businesses that have been operating for at least two years anywhere in Texas and New Mexico, except for the East Texas counties served by the Delta USDA Regional Food Business Center. Grants available annually with requests to apply due by April 3, 2025, for the first round.
Funding should be used for post-harvest activities, “not so much seeds in the ground or tractors or fencing for livestock, but more for marketing, opportunities to move products, product development,” said Valerie Venecia, program director for the Rio Grande Colonias USDA Regional Food Business Center.
“One of the big gaps in the food supply chain we see here is the lack of infrastructure,” Venecia said. “It’s hard for food businesses to make it to the next level from home cottage business to retail establishment or big box store. We’re trying to bridge the gap.”
The Rio Grande center has hired two business development coordinators in El Paso, as well as a couple in the Rio Grande Valley, to identify clients, figure out what technical assistance they need and work with them to fill out applications, said Beth Racine, director of operations and finance for the project. The center also wants to hire coordinators in Uvalde, Laredo and Corpus Christi, she added.
For now, the center is keeping eligibility criteria fairly broad because the team doesn’t know what the demand will be like, Racine said.
For its budget, the center asks the USDA for reimbursement on its expenditures and grants. Racine said the project is so far unaffected by Trump administration cuts.
In an attempt to downsize the federal government, the Trump administration this year has slashed or frozen USDA funds. The Trump administration has also fired – and rehired – thousands of USDA employees.
“We really don’t know, honestly,” Racine said on potential project cuts. “We’ve had discussions with our other regional food business centers around the country. We’re in a time where we really don’t know if changes in Washington are going to impact our project. We hope not.”
Partners and collaborators of the Rio Grande center include La Semilla Food Center in southern New Mexico, Desert Spoon Food Hub and Border City Distribution in El Paso.
Border City Distribution offers product testing, labeling and assistance with food safety plans so businesses can get their products into larger markets.
Adriana Clowe, co-director of Desert Spoon Food Hub, said she’s excited to see the creation of a database for technical assistance.
Some of the most frequent questions she fields from farmers in the Desert Spoon network have to do with marketing and branding ideas, she said. She also gets questions about regulations for wholesale and food safety requirements. For example, Desert Spoon Food Hub can’t purchase and resell food that was produced under the cottage food law, Clowe said.
Food regulations and links in the middle of the supply chain that cater to large-scale producers and factory farms make it difficult for smaller producers to access the same markets.
“Infrastructure is critical for distribution, one of the most costly line items in scaling a business,” Clowe said. “Connecting them with cold storage or holding sites or truck services or routes already in place. Connecting a producer here to the Albuquerque market or into Central Texas. … What our role is, through the center or as the hub, is to figure out how we utilize existing infrastructure for local producers so they can be competitive in the marketplace.”
Selling value-added products is a way food businesses can diversify their revenue streams and support their longevity, Venecia said.
“If I have raw peaches from a tree, I can sell them for a couple bucks a pound,” Venecia said. “If I make them into jam or peach pie or peach juice, anything that adds value or revenue to that product, it helps stretch the raw material further for the business.”
Desert Spoon Food Hub does this by working with in-house chef Mateo Herrera to use the produce that didn’t sell or isn’t he prettiest and turn them into ready-made meals, such as soups, Venecia said.
Venecia gave one of the center’s clients, a pomegranate farmer, as another example. The farmer wants to establish a commercial kitchen for not only their business, other neighborhood and backyard producers. The business also hosts events at the orchard where families can pick their own pomegranates and eat chiles en nogada, a seasonal dish of poblano chile stuffed with picadillo and topped with a creamy walnut sauce, pomegranate seeds and parsley.
Another client in Laredo wants to establish a co-op grocery store. Unlike traditional grocery stores, co-op shoppers can become members who own the business, share in profits and have a say in decision-making.
Venecia recalled a trip to the Rio Grande Valley when she met a man who owned a distribution company that moves food between Texas and Mexico. He recognized small producers, the kind prioritized in the USDA project, were left out of this opportunity because they didn’t have enough product to fill an 18-wheeler truck, so he invested in smaller trucks, she said.
The Rio Grande center relies on business development coordinators to drive around, attend events and farmers markets, and find potential clients. Small producers are busy working and may not have time to attend outreach events, Venecia said.
“We have to make it very accessible and come to them in a lot of cases,” Venecia said. “I anticipate a lot of this work is one-on-one, customized and very individual. There’s not any one simple solution to solve all the food system problems.”
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