The Indiana Economic Development Association Foundation is pleased to announce that the US Economic Development Administration (US EDA) has awarded a $100,097 grant to assist four regions in Indiana increating a strategy to leverage each region’s agricultural assets.  The grant will fund implementation of the Rural Economic Development Model (REDM): a first-of-its-kind process developed in Indiana to assist rural communities in creating new economic development opportunities for Indiana’s farmers.

The US EDA grant will enable the North Central Indiana region, comprised of Cass, Clinton, Fulton, Howard, Miami, and Tipton Counties,to examine the agricultural output in their regions to identify opportunities for creating new markets, applications, or processing facilities that can enhance the local value of the agricultural output.  This will create new markets and income for local farmers, generate more local jobs connected to agriculture, and capture a greater source of revenue for the region’s communities.

The Rural Economic Development model was created as a collaboration between the Indiana Economic Development Association (IEDA), Indiana State Department of Agriculture and the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD) with support from the Indiana Farm Bureau, Indiana Corn Marketing Council, Indiana Soybean Alliance and the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

"Agriculture will continue to be an important economic driver for the foreseeable future.  Fulton County is looking forward to working with the five other counties in our region to develop new opportunities for agriculture products produced and supplied within North Central Indiana," stated Tiffany Futrell, Interim Director of Fulton Economic Development Corporation.

The Rural Economic Development Model employs a proprietary technology developed by PCRD that enables counties and regions to examine the agricultural output unique to their locale, and then engages a local planning team composed of local economic development officials, farmers, and other local stakeholders to create and implement a plan to leverage local agricultural outputs, expand existing agribusinesses and attract new economic opportunities.

The 24-month process kicked off in the fourth quarter of 2021 and will be completed in July of 2023.