May 23, 2024
USDA kicked off National Small Business Month on April 24 with a Midwest “Paths to Prosperity” event at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri.th And 25thThis is 19Number The event has been running since 2022 to provide a regional business and economic development workshop featuring experts from the financial industry, federal government, community partners and stakeholders.
Through this partnership, USDA, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Small Business Administration will continue to provide federal, state, local, and private partner opportunities to self-employed individuals, small businesses, and communities. The information, tools, and resources shared lead to asset building, wealth creation, economic advancement, and fostering hope for small businesses across the country.
One of the primary objectives of Pathways to Prosperity is to improve small business contracting relationships with the federal government and private industry partners. This objective has been achieved and will continue to be achieved. Last year, the Biden-Harris Administration exceeded its FY2023 small business contracting goal of 23%, allocating a record 28.4% of federal contracting dollars to small businesses. As a result of the work of the Office of Small Business and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), USDA received an A+ rating on the FY2023 Federal Procurement “Scorecard.” This scorecard measures how well federal agencies are meeting their small business contracting goals each year. And Pathways to Prosperity is a major outreach effort of USDA and OSDBU to provide tools and resources for small businesses to access federal programs and procurement opportunities across the country.
The Midwest States Pathways to Prosperity event included self-employed individuals, small businesses, and communities from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. As a result, participants were able to obtain more bank introductions and business development support. This event demonstrates how the federal government, along with local, state, and private partners, is leveraging resources to address the needs of the economy by strengthening America’s small businesses, the powerhouses of our economy and the cohesive force of our communities. Underscoring this, Malcolm Shorter, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration, said:
The Midwest event featured dynamic discussions with experts in the coherent areas of capital access and government contracting. In response to requests from local partners, the event also placed special emphasis on value-added production and vendor/corporate linkages in the agro-industry. The goals of these two focuses were, respectively, to increase awareness and accelerate adoption of value-added business practices and to increase market access through corporate purchasing programs.
Expert participants included agricultural business owners and operators such as Tabletop Farm, R/Farms, Green Grass Cattle Company, and Midwest and Southern supermarket chain Hy-Vee.
