One regulation, four programs — one study standard that survives USDA review.
Independent feasibility studies for projects financed under USDA’s OneRD Guarantee Loan Initiative — Business & Industry (B&I), Community Facilities (CF), the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), and Water & Waste Disposal (WWD) — prepared to the enumerated feasibility factors of 7 CFR Part 5001. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower.
The OneRD Guarantee Loan Initiative harmonizes four USDA Rural Development guaranteed-loan programs under a single regulation, 7 CFR Part 5001, with one application process, one set of forms, and one loan-note guarantee. The consolidation simplified the paperwork — it did not soften the underwriting. The regulation carries enumerated feasibility factors, and USDA reviews the lender’s file, including the feasibility study, before issuing the guarantee.
Guaranteed financing for rural businesses — acquisitions, construction, expansion, and working capital for for-profit and non-profit enterprises.
Essential community services in rural areas — healthcare, public safety, education, and civic facilities.
Renewable-energy systems and energy-efficiency improvements for rural small businesses and agricultural producers.
Drinking water, sanitary sewer, solid waste, and storm-drainage infrastructure serving rural communities.
Under 7 CFR Part 5001, new enterprises and projects whose repayment depends on projections rather than demonstrated historical cash flow generally require an independent feasibility study from a qualified, independent third party. The study is a primary underwriting document: USDA and the lender rely on it to test whether the revenue, the ramp, and the debt-service coverage that justify the loan will hold up after the project opens. A study that addresses the regulation’s enumerated factors — economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility — is what makes the credit defensible when the agency reviews the file.
Every determination is independent — never for sale to the party who benefits from a “feasible” finding. Every material number is derived and sourced. Every material risk is named and stress-tested. That is what full compliance means in practice, and it is why the study survives USDA review and third-party scrutiny. Wert-Berater has prepared more than 4,000 feasibility studies since 1998, across all 50 states and internationally, for SBA, USDA, EB-5, conventional, and institutional financing decisions.
Unlike the SBA’s principles-based approach, 7 CFR Part 5001 prescribes the feasibility analysis: five feasibility dimensions — economic, market, technical, financial, and management — with Appendix A to Subpart D enumerating the individual factors a compliant study must address. That structure changes how a study should be written. The Agency reviews against the list, and an unaddressed factor is a returned study, so Wert-Berater builds every OneRD engagement factor by factor and closes with a compliance matrix mapping each enumerated requirement to the section that satisfies it. The reviewer verifies compliance on sight instead of hunting for it — which is the difference between a file that moves and a file that circulates.
Across the OneRD programs, the trigger is the same in principle: new enterprises and projects whose repayment depends on projections rather than demonstrated historical cash flow generally require an independent study from a qualified third party acceptable to the lender and the Agency. The emphasis moves with the program. B&I files lean on the market and financial dimensions — the regulation states plainly that the guarantee is reserved for quality loans, not marginal or substandard credits, and the study is how a projection-based rural project demonstrates it belongs in the first category. Community Facilities files are underwritten on sustainability rather than profit, which shifts the burden to essentiality and the revenue model. REAP files turn on production and offtake evidence for the energy asset. Where a program or a specific project profile does not require a full study, the lender’s file still has to support repayment — and your lender or the Rural Development office is the authority on what your application must include.
USDA practice under 7 CFR 5001 defines debt-service coverage on an EBITDA basis less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures — a definition with teeth, because it forces capex reserves into the calculation rather than letting depreciation inflate the ratio. Rural assets that consume themselves on a schedule show the difference quickly: a pro forma at 1.45x coverage that reserves nothing for the roof, the process equipment, or the vehicle fleet is showing a number that will not survive year six. Our studies model reserves explicitly, report coverage both with and without them, and present the ratio as a ten-year trajectory under base and stressed cases — year-one coverage on a ground-up project is usually the binding constraint, and a credible study says so.
The property must sit in an eligible rural area, and the program’s definitions reward verification before the study is commissioned, not after — eligibility checked too late is one of the three issues that most often trips up OneRD applications. We confirm it at scoping, and your lender or the Rural Development office can verify a specific property’s status. Citizenship, ownership, and program-specific conditions are then addressed inside the study itself, where the reviewer expects to find them.
Three issues recur across returned applications. Rural eligibility is checked too late. The technical dimension is under-evidenced — processing and manufacturing projects, which the B&I program favors, need contractor capability, equipment condition, and commissioning schedules demonstrated rather than asserted. And the capital stack is presented without reconciliation — OneRD deals routinely layer guaranteed debt over sponsor equity and sometimes grants, and the study must tie every source to every use, including timing. Each of these is a structural failure, and each is avoidable by structure: the five factors evidenced separately, the stack reconciled to the dollar, the eligibility question answered on page one.
Community Facilities studies must pass the essentiality test with census evidence — defining the community served, quantifying the service gap, and showing the proposed scale matches the demonstrated need, because an oversized facility fails feasibility just as surely as an unneeded one. Each CF revenue model demands its own architecture, stress-tested against its own risks: payer mix and reimbursement policy for a critical-access hospital, enrollment and subsidy programs for a childcare center, tax capacity for a municipal complex. REAP studies treat revenue as a physical production forecast multiplied by a price, and both halves require independent evidence — the resource assessment tested against the system design, the offtake structure priced for its counterparty and policy risk rather than assuming the rate card holds for twenty-five years, and the incentive stack reconciled with and without the layers that are not contractually committed. B&I studies carry the full five-factor weight for commercial credit, from $1 million rural businesses to the firm’s $38,110,000 sugar refinery restoration engagement.
A fixed fee is quoted in writing within one business day of your request, at no charge and never contingent on the finding. A typical OneRD engagement runs on the project budget and sources-and-uses, site and technical documentation, management résumés, historical financials where operations exist, and the lender’s term sheet. Standard delivery is 10 to 15 business days from complete project data, with rush available for a fixed add-on committed up front — and after delivery we answer lender and Agency reviewer questions directly, because the study is not finished until the reviewer is.
Related reading: USDA feasibility study consultants · USDA B&I feasibility study guide · Community Facilities guide · REAP guide · The enumerated factors of 7 CFR 5001 · DSCR requirements compared
For OneRD lenders, the firm also provides outsourced loan underwriting — independent credit analysis and credit-memorandum preparation in the lender’s own template — so the feasibility study and the credit file can align to a single standard without shifting credit authority.
Under 7 CFR Part 5001, new enterprises and projects whose repayment depends on projections rather than demonstrated historical cash flow generally require an independent feasibility study from a qualified third party acceptable to the lender and the Agency. The lender obtains it as part of the guarantee file; your lender or the Rural Development office is the authority on what a specific application must include.
Five dimensions — economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility — with Appendix A to Subpart D of the regulation enumerating the individual factors. Wert-Berater studies close with a compliance matrix mapping each enumerated requirement to the section that satisfies it.
An independent, qualified third party with no financial interest in the project, acceptable to the lender and the Agency. Wert-Berater, Inc. has prepared 817 USDA studies reviewed in agency financing since 1998, with fiduciary duty to the lender and the Agency rather than the borrower.
USDA practice under 7 CFR 5001 works from EBITDA less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures, so reserves for the asset’s real consumption schedule come out before coverage is measured. A credible study reports coverage both with and without reserves, as a multi-year trajectory under base and stressed cases.
Verify before the study is commissioned — eligibility checked too late is one of the most common reasons OneRD applications stall. We confirm it at scoping, and your lender or the Rural Development office can verify a specific property’s designation.
Standard delivery is 10 to 15 business days from complete project data, with rush available for a fixed add-on committed up front. The fee is fixed, quoted in writing within one business day, scoped to the project rather than the deal size, and never contingent on the finding.
Financing under OneRD? Tell us about the project and the program. We will confirm scope, turnaround, and a fixed fee before any work begins.
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