The Food & Fuel for the Forces Program (FF4F) is a regional partnership between the agricultural community, the military, local governments, economic developers and environmental interests managed by the NCEast Alliance. 
FF4F is intended to add value to the agricultural product of the eastern North Carolina region by helping to better integrate the military market for food and fuel with the ability of the regional grower to provide these products. The innovative program will provide new jobs as local farmers, fishermen, and foresters will be able to add staff to support orders from a reliable, high volume customer. Additionally, this program will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated in the region. FF4F is further separated into two sub-programs.
Food for the Forces
This vital component of FF4F will help determine the degree to which regional production and consumption match. By evaluating what is produced and consumed (by the U.S. military customer and others) and then taking steps to better align the supply and demand, growers in the eastern North Carolina region will see increased financial opportunities. Demand that is not being met by local suppliers will be identified as new opportunities. The final part of the program will be to identify distribution systems, procurement processes or legislative improvements necessary to overcome barriers and improve the integration of agriculture supply and military demand within the region.
Fuel for the Forces
The fuel portion of FF4F is developed around the national security imperative calling for renewable energy to replace imported oil. It focuses on the aggressive goals and mandates that have been placed on the armed services to buy and use these fuels. This program will develop opportunities for our region’s farmers and foresters to provide products that can be converted into energy for either power generation or as liquid fuels. Finding crops that promise good returns to the farmers and developing the pathways for new energy crops from the farms, through the transformation process to the end users, are the program’s major goals.
Get Involved!
Learn how you can get involved and be a part of history in eastern North Carolina.
Point of contact: George Miller, Program Manager
Email: miller@nceast.org