Iowa State University has been awarded a grant from USDA Rural Development to organize a cooperative business development center. The Iowa Alliance for Cooperative Business Development combines outreach and research programs that encourage rural economic development.

The Alliance's four primary objectives:

• Conduct cooperative training workshops to educate directors, officers, and managers about finance, strategic management, and other issues important to cooperatives and mutually-owned businesses.

• Identify and evaluate cellulosic biomass marketing options available to producers.

• Pilot a program that sends a student team studying entrepreneurship to work with an Iowa farm supply and grain elevator cooperative to identify potential business opportunities that could lead to a new business or expansion of a current business.

• Help rural electric cooperatives and other rural economic developers identify local supply chain clusters and understand how supply chain clusters can be leveraged for rural economic development.