The USDA has announced Rural Business Opportunity grants of up to $250,000 to support economic development in local and regional economies around food, energy and natural resources.  The projects are expected to represent a collaboration within a self-defined region of a wide range of institutions and organizations.  The Federal Register notice is attached but to save you some time, the key areas of interest to be supported include:

1.  Local and regional food systems
that encourage agriculture and related
industries in new wealth creation—

2. Renewable energy generation and
energy conservation as strategies for
quality job creation as well as climate
change reduction and mitigation—

3. Access to broadband and other
critical infrastructure as a strategy for
facilitating local entrepreneurship and
attracting people into rural areas—

4. Access to capital in rural areas as
a strategy to ensure continuous business
development and job creation/
retention—

5. Innovative utilization of natural
resources as a strategy to expand
business opportunities—

Deadline June 28, 2010

Sounds a lot like what we're all doing through our combined efforts as reflected in this site.  I'd encourage you to use the working groups on localfoodsystems.org to develop proposals for this program, and create regional working groups if they do not yet exist to organize the effort.  Good luck and hope your collaborations build through this program.