Regional Food System Partnerships (RFSP) Program Evaluation

Summary

The Regional Food System Partnerships (RFSP) program evaluation was designed to assess the impact of the RFSP grant program, administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), on local and regional food systems nationwide. The RFSP grant program was implemented to strengthen local and regional food systems by fostering cross-sector collaboration and strategic planning focusing on projects that were designed to build partnerships across the food system, expand market opportunities for producers and processors, and overall invest in the long-term resilience of food systems.

The evaluation used a mixed-methods design utilizing Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) with 10 RFSP projects and 95 participants, and an online survey of 23 grant recipients, to capture both qualitative stories and quanitative evidence of program impact.

The evaluation found that RFSP’s investment in partnership building served as the foundation for nearly every other outcome. Projects credited the program’s extended planning period with allowing them the time needed to build trust among partnerships which led to more avenues to new market access, additional grant funding, educational programming, and faster responses to disruptions. Nearly all survey respondents added new partners, most reported those partnerships continuing after the grant period, and 95 percent reported satisfaction with the program.

Project Lead:

Season Hoard – Principal Investigator