Milk, vegetables and kelp. These are some of the food chain essentials in Connecticut, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
On Thursday, the USDA announced that it will be distributing $670,000 in grants to three projects in Connecticut through the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program (RFSI). This money will go to the Modern Milkman to establish an aggregation and distribution center in Danbury, the New London Community Meal Center to build a cooperative commercial kitchen, and Yellow Farmhouse Education Center in Stonington to create processing and storage facilities for kelp.
Modern Milkman will be receiving $250,000, the New London Community Meal Center will receive $249,984 and Yellow Farmhouse Education Center will have $172,554, according to Connecticut Department of Agriculture Communications Director Rebecca Eddy.
Ten eligible applications were submitted, but only these organizations were awarded grants, Eddy said.
“Building a resilient food systems infrastructure is essential for Connecticut producers. By investing in projects that enhance aggregation and distribution of fluid milk and value-added dairy, as well as shared processing and cold-storage facilities for CT Grown products from the ground to the Sound, we can fortify our local economy,” Connecticut Department of Agriculture Commissioner Bryan P. Hurlburt said in a press release. “This collaboration not only boosts resilience and vitality but also opens doors to new revenue streams and market opportunities leveraging federal funding.”
There are 12 kelp farms with permits in Connecticut. Only 11 of them were active in 2024, according to Associate Director of Connecticut Sea Grant Nancy Balcom.
In 2022, Connecticut kelp farmers harvested 3,800 pounds of wet kelp, according to a 2023 Sea Grant report.
There are 11 states with permitted kelp farms in the country, the Sea Grant report states. Only seven of those states reported kelp harvests for that report. Connecticut had the lowest kelp yield of all those states.
There are geographic constraints to kelp farming. Connecticut has only 600 miles of coastline, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In comparison, Maine and Alaska have 3,500 and 65,000 miles of coastline, respectively.
“We will never grow the kind of quantities that are grown in Maine or Alaska,” Balcom said. “I think that we can certainly support more kelp for human food. It’s just a matter of working through what people want to do with it and working through the regulatory side of it.”
Many farmers are drying kelp or freezing kelp noodles, according to Balcom.
“You have to find a market, and then you have to be able to meet a demand of that market,” she said. “Right now, that works quite well with raw products, but is not that far along in terms of other products.”
The RSFI is a nationwide program that was created during the American Rescue Plan. There is $420 million available for grants across the country, including $2.1 million for Connecticut, according to the USDA.
Applications for the second round of funding will open in February 2025.
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