LINCOLN — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in the middle of July that they would be cutting funding to the Business Builder Grants awarded from the Heartland Regional Food Center.

The Heartland Regional Food Center was planning on doing two rounds of funds through the grants helping small farms and businesses in five states including Nebraska expand their operations.

The first round of applicants are set to still receive the funding, however the second round with an $8.3 million pool has been slashed, leaving thousands of applicants in the dust. It’s the same news that Katie Nixon, the co-director of the Heartland Regional Food Center had to break to those who applied.

“There’s a huge disappointment that we won’t be able to disperse those that almost $9 million in funding that was going to go to these food and farm businesses to expand their businesses and build what they need to build in.”

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