Department of Agriculture’s Women-Owned Small Business Program

The Department of Agriculture's efforts to promote opportunities for women owned small businesses exemplifies best practices.  Through its OSDBU, the Department negotiates aggressive goals with its buying activities for award of contracts to such firms. Trained small business specialists assist each of the Department's buying activities with procedures for identification of opportunities and referral to potential women owned small business vendors. Agriculture’s liaisons work closely with women owned small business associations. Further, senior managers are held accountable annually through their performance plans for efforts and achievements. Finally, the Department uses internal scorecards to evaluate subcomponents’ success in increasing opportunities for women owned small businesses. As a result, the Department estimates that it in FY 2007, it awarded $304 million in contracts to women owned small businesses, representing or 7.1% of its total procurements.

In the spirit of Administrator Preston's initiative to increase government-contracting opportunities for small businesses - especially those that are women owned, service disabled veteran owned, and HUBZone-certified, we applaud the Department's strong efforts and accomplishments.