Northwest Agriculture Business Center

Rural cooperative development: nabc assists individuals and entities in the development, expansion, and operational improvement of rural businesses, specifically cooperatives and mutually owned businesses. These services focus on strategies to support a rural workforce, provide for economic development, and improve the quality of life for residents of rural western washington state.nabc's goals focus on strengthening the local food system and improving the economic condition of rural areas by working with diverse groups of farming cooperatives and producers throughout western washington. Nabc has facilitated the development of critical infrastructure to provide access to new markets for rural producers; introduced producers to federal, state, and local assistance programs; provided technical assistance to access these programs; and created new food assistance programs that source food from local producers.infrastructure development is a major component of this work. Nabc supports regional efforts to increase meat processing and has a leadership role in the development of a regional grain economy based on establishing grain storage and rail transload infrastructure in southwest washington.

Partnership and engagement: nabc is committed to serving individuals and businesses including hispanic, hmong/lao, african american, and u.s veterans. Nabc does this by supporting successful business development.nabc strives to increase access to and participation in usda agency-supported grant and loan programs. Nabc serves as a resource to connect producers and others to usda programs by collaborating with usda agency staff to present workshops and program materials in multiple languages to support the development of relationships between project participants and usda agency staff. Nabc also provides hands-on technical assistance to support individuals as well as groups of farmers to meet grant and loan application requirements; complete and submit accurate and compelling applications for usda-funded programs; and win grant awards and/or obtain loans. Nabc also works with collaborating organizations to organize and implement workshops that provide farm-business development tools and individual farmer skills in the areas of business planning, marketing, outreach and market access, farm and food safety, and basic computer skills.