BATON ROUGE – A state budget panel this morning awarded more than $37 million to agriculture giant ConAgra to build a sweet potato processing and freezing plant near Delhi in Northeast Louisiana.
The Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget approved the grant utilizing money in the Louisiana Mega-Project Development Fund.
The 22-3 vote came over objections of Bruce Foods owner Si Brown, who said the state shouldn’t give such a large amount of money to a company that will compete with his operation, and Acadiana lawmakers on the panel. Bruce Foods operates a vegetable processing, canning and freezing plant in Iberia Parish.
