(Radio Iowa)- Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig is asking lawmakers to boost funding for the state’s “Choose Iowa” program that supports individuals and businesses that produce everything from locally grown food to trees and soy candles. There’s a one-hundred dollar yearly fee for enrolling in the program, which launched in 2023. The number of participating businesses jumped 113 percent last year. “We want to continue to grow that membership — recruit new members, retain existing members (and) increase consumer awareness. The more that consumers know that Choose Iowa’s out there, the more they’ll look for it, the most products will be sold,” Naig said. “And, of course, we also are now really going the next level of how do we help connect our Choose Iowa members with distributors, with retail, you know, try to get to where they can sell some larger quantities on a more predictive basis.”

Naig is asking for a 300-thousand dollar boost in the Choose Iowa program budget. He’d use part of that money to hire someone with experience in getting products placed in retail locations. “Recognizing that we’ve got members that are just getting started. You’ve got members who are in a growth potential,” Naig said. “You’ve got other members where they are at a point where they need to get into distribution now. They are really looking to grow big.”

The program handed out half a million dollars in grants to businesses this past year and Naig says each state tax dollar awarded to a Choose Iowa business led to nearly a dollar of matching local investment.