WASHINGTON, June 24, 2024 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced enhanced resources to make contract information easier to access for companies interested in selling products and services to USDA. These significant updates include the addition of new targeted contract information to USDA.gov, improved functionality to help companies and individuals quickly find and access procurement opportunities, and a portal that allows companies to more easily share the scope of their capabilities with USDA.
“Doing business with USDA should be easy, especially for our nation’s small businesses,” said USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small. “Unfortunately, researching and identifying the right procurement opportunities can be an incredibly difficult, confusing and time-consuming task, which is why the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing new tools and resources to make contracting with USDA easier for America’s farmers and all of us who rely on the food they grow.”
These improvements, led by USDA’s Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP) in collaboration with the Office of Small Business and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), include:
Creation of a new “Contracting with USDA” site to provide information, resources, and links in a helpful Q&A format for companies looking to contract with USDA. The site answers frequently asked questions such as “What does USDA typically purchase?”, “What are the most common ways USDA purchases what we need?”, and “How can I find current opportunities to contract with USDA?”. The Vendor Capability Submission Portal has been updated to allow suppliers and merchants to submit business capabilities to USDA via a web form. Portal submissions will be shared with contracting officers across the Department. The previously introduced USDA Procurement Forecast has been updated. This is a tool that helps companies and individuals identify procurement opportunities with USDA. Launched in June 2023, the Procurement Forecast now makes it easier to search and filter procurement opportunities. Currently, the tool contains approximately 6,000 planned contract opportunities for fiscal year (FY) 2024.
“USDA has a long history of contracting with a variety of companies to deliver our mission to the American people. Additionally, we unwaveringly support large, medium and small businesses. We hope the contracting resources deployed will help even more companies navigate the complex process of contracting with the federal government,” said USDA Under Secretary for Administrative Affairs Malcolm Shorter.
In fiscal year 2023, USDA obligated more than $11 billion across 67,000 contracting activities across a wide range of industries and contract types. For fiscal year 2024, USDA is estimating comparable obligation and contract award amounts to industry partners.
USDA procurement goes beyond agricultural products: Last fiscal year, the department awarded $4.9 billion in food contracts, $4.2 billion in services contracts, $1.7 billion in information technology contracts, $500 million in supplies and nearly $500 million in construction contracts to nearly 12,000 businesses across a wide range of industries.
The Department strongly supports procurement initiatives that promote equity and remove barriers to procurement opportunity. To foster growth, USDA will award more than 57.5% of its contract dollars to small businesses this year, with 27.85% of those awards going to disadvantaged small businesses. USDA’s overall efforts to support small businesses earned it an A+ rating on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2023 Small Business Procurement Scorecard.
Companies interested in contracting with USDA should refer to Contracting with USDA to access these and other resources.
USDA impacts the lives of all Americans in many positive ways every day. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system by focusing on more resilient local and regional food production; promoting competition and fairer markets for all producers; ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities; building new markets and revenue streams for farmers and producers who use climate-smart food and forestry practices; making historic investments in America’s rural infrastructure and clean energy capacity; and focusing on ensuring equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a more representative workforce. For more information, visit www.usda.gov.
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