Mississippi Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA)

USDA-funded cooperative agreement administered by MDAC that purchases locally and regionally produced food from Mississippi farmers/producers (via Mississippi's Feeding America food banks) for distribution to underserved communities. Aims to expand economic opportunities for local, regional, and socially disadvantaged farmers/producers by connecting them with food distributors. Producers complete a questionnaire to be considered as suppliers; food must be raised/produced/processed in Mississippi or within 400 miles of the point of distribution (e.g., fruits, vegetables, milk, beef, poultry, pork, rice, processed foods). This is a purchase/market-access program, not a cash grant — submitting the questionnaire does not guarantee an award or purchase contract.

Producers of locally/regionally produced food in Mississippi (or within 400 miles of a MS point of distribution); socially disadvantaged farmers/ranchers prioritized.

There is no award, rate, cost-share percentage, or contract term to report — by design. LFPA does not pay producers a grant; it introduces them to food banks that buy their product at negotiated wholesale prices. The producer questionnaire sets the producer's own price expectation, asking for an "Est. FOB Unit Price" per product ("ex. $ per unit") along with weight per unit, total units available, and minimum and maximum units per order. MDAC publishes no price schedule, floor, or ceiling.

The most important condition is that participating buys you nothing automatically: "Submission of this questionnaire does not guarantee an award or contract for purchase." Completing it also carries a disclosure consent — "By completing this questionnaire, you agree to allow MDAC to share your information with potential purchasing and distribution agencies."

Product must meet a local-sourcing test: the questionnaire is for "a producer of locally and regionally produced food; meaning the food is raised, produced, aggregated, stored, processed, and distributed in Mississippi or within 400 miles of the point of distribution in Mississippi." Food safety certification such as GAP/GHP is explicitly "not required," but producers who have not had food safety handling training are asked whether they would take a free Produce Safety Alliance training in order to participate. Delivery capability, packaging capability, and pick-up capacity are all part of the assessment, and delivery costs are the producer's to describe.

Note for planning: this record's application portal was returning HTTP 503 and MDAC's own LFPA program page was returning 404 when these terms were verified on 2026-09-04, so confirm the program is still taking producers before relying on it. The federal cooperative agreement behind it was $2.82 million to MDAC — a program pool that funds food-bank purchasing, not a per-producer award.

Complete the LFPA Producer Questionnaire online at the MDAC FoodBank portal. Verify current enrollment status (form is live but no deadline stated).