Fighting for lasting changes through legislation.

Priorities by topic:

The Food System Caucus have chosen several bills each one corresponding with one of the topic areas: food access and insecurity, farmland, and economic development.

These bills are as follows, additional information can be found below, as well as, on the official website of the Massachusetts State Legislature.
 

Food System Caucus 194th Session Priority Legislation

Food access/insecurity: Reducing waste, hunger, and food insecurity while making available more fresh, healthy food to everyone who lives in the Commonwealth.

H3154/S1043/S1141 An Act encouraging the donation of food to persons in need

Sponsors: Rep. Kane, Sen. Comerford, Sen. E. Kennedy

Purpose: Food insecurity levels across the Commonwealth remain high, with one in three households reporting experiencing food insecurity. At the same time, food waste accounts for more than one fifth of Massachusetts’ trash. Many farmers want to donate their excess crops, but donating excess crops requires storage, time, and labor, all of which cost money. This bill facilitates the donation of food from farms, grocery stores, and restaurants by extending liability protection in existing law to allow for direct food donations, and creates a tax credit of up to $25,000 for the donation of food to non-profit organizations.

H222/S104 An Act relative to an agricultural healthy incentives program

Sponsors: Rep. Domb, Rep. Vargas, Sen. Comerford

Purpose: The Healthy Incentives Program (HIP) provides Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) users with extra benefits each month when they buy healthy, local fruits and vegetables from participating farm vendors. HIP provides critical nutrition and food access for food insecure residents, essential revenue for farmers, and jobs and increased economic development activity in communities across the state. Despite its importance, HIP is not enshrined in statute and can experience abrupt funding cuts. This bill establishes a permanent, year-round Healthy Incentives Program in statute, ensuring stability for residents and farmers alike.

H1466/S939 An Act establishing the hunger free campus initiative

Sponsors: Rep. Vargas, Rep. Domb, Sen. Lovely

Purpose: The bill aims to tackle food insecurity on college campuses in Massachusetts by creating an Office of Capacity Building Services within the Department of Higher Education. This office will provide funding, technical assistance, and grant opportunities for colleges to address hunger. It encourages campuses to leverage federal nutrition programs and establish student-led food insecurity task forces. The bill also supports initiatives like student meal sharing programs, emergency funds, campus food insecurity surveys, and on-campus SNAP EBT vendors to help students in need.

Farming and Food System: Protecting the land and resources necessary to produce food while maximizing the environmental benefits of agriculture and fishing and the preservation of agricultural land.

H71/S11 Proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to agricultural and horticultural lands

Sponsors: Rep. Blais, Rep. Kane, Sen. Comerford

Purpose: The state Constitution recognizes the importance of agriculture by allowing farmland to be taxed based on its value as agricultural or horticultural land, rather than as commercial or residential land. However, farms must be at least five acres to qualify under this provision. This constitutional amendment allows smaller-sized farm parcels to qualify. This change would benefit urban farmers who often pay exorbitant property taxes for small parcels of land, new farmers who cannot find or afford large parcels of farmland, and existing farmers who want to expand production to smaller and/or noncontiguous parcels.

H121/S61 An Act Relative to Urban Farmland

Sponsors: Rep. Duffy, Sen. Gomez

Purpose: This bill creates a fund and programming to support the conversion of vacant lots to farms, community gardens, and other agricultural enterprises in environmental justice populations.

H112/S55 An Act fostering agricultural resilience in Massachusetts

Sponsors: Rep. Blais, Sen. Comerford

Purpose: Farms across Massachusetts struggle to remain financially sustainable, earning just 95 cents for every dollar they spend producing food. This omnibus legislation proposes many policy updates to close this gap by establishing a $3 million Next Generation Farmers Fund to provide education grants, directing MEMA to incorporate food production capacity into disaster planning, allowing MDAR to protect whole farms in the APR program, establishing a state food system coordinator position, allowing MDAR additional authority as land is being sold, and more.

Economic Development: Recognizing the significant impact to local, regional, and state economies, supporting the increase of production, sales, and consumption of Massachusetts-farmed food and seafood and creating jobs and improving wages in the food, farming, and seafood industries.

H3130/S2023 An Act to promote urban agriculture and horticulture

Sponsors: Rep. Howard, Rep. Kane, Sen. E. Kennedy

Purpose: This bill allows cities to adopt an optional property tax break for land used for commercial urban agriculture. The plots must generate at least $500 in gross sales annually, and cities or towns which accept the clause can modify the percent of property exempt from taxation. They may also extend the exemption to rooftop farms or container farm operations.

Food System Caucus 194th Session Endorsed Legislation

Food access/insecurity: Reducing waste, hunger, and food insecurity while making available more fresh, healthy food to everyone who lives in the Commonwealth.

H565/S311 An Act Establishing the MA Farm to School Program

Sponsors: Rep. Duffy, Rep. Vargas, Sen. Comerford

Purpose: This bill codifies and staffs the Farm to School meal provision program.

H128/S63 An Act relative to establishing a food justice frontline

Sponsors: Rep. Howard, Sen. Jehlen

Purpose: This bill establishes the Food Justice Frontline Program to help provide financial support to nonprofit food security organizations. Such organizations are those who provide employment in food production, distribution, preparation, and delivery for Massachusetts residents or those who provide land to low- and moderate-income individuals for agricultural production. The bill also directs the department of transitional assistance to establish a new program to promote SNAP, the Healthy Incentives Program, and other food access programs available to Massachusetts residents.

H118 Resolve providing for an investigation by a special commission relative to the strengths and sustainability of the Commonwealth’s emergency food network

Sponsors: Rep. Domb, Rep. Vargas

Purpose: This bill would establish a commission to study the strengths and challenges facing food pantries in the Commonwealth. The study would include the adequacy of state support, organizational sustainability, and the emergency food network’s capacity to meet community needs. The commission’s work would result in recommendations to strengthen the system.

H120 An Act Supporting the Commonwealth's Food System

Sponsors: Rep. Duffy, Rep. Donahue

Purpose: This bill provides a staffer for the MA Food Policy Council.

H196/S167 Act maximizing participation in federal nutrition programs and improving customer service

Sponsors: Rep. Arena-DeRosa, Sen. Moore

Purpose: SNAP caseloads are down, but there are concerns about DTA capacity driving the change. This bill directs EOHS to examine caseloads, timeliness, participation rates and report recommendations.

H2460/S1555 An Act decreasing food waste by standardizing the date labeling of food

Sponsors: Rep. Kane, Sen. E. Kennedy

Purpose: This legislation standardizes the date labeling of food in order to mitigate consumer confusion and thereby reduce food waste, which is the single largest contributor to solid waste.

H2516/S1616 An Act establishing an advisory committee on the accessibility of fresh food retail in communities throughout the Commonwealth

Sponsors: Rep. Ramos, Sen. Oliveira

Purpose: This bill creates an advisory committee to evaluate access to fresh food across the commonwealth, with a focus on rural areas. The committee will identify communities with limited food access, examine the causes and public health impacts, propose strategies to improve access, and assess the costs of its recommendations.

H126/S62 An Act establishing community fridges to address food insecurity

Sponsors: Rep. Gomez, Sen. Gomez

Purpose: This bill aims to place community fridges across the Commonwealth, prioritizing areas of high food insecurity and areas disproportionately impacted by food deserts.

H3331/S2223 An Act establishing the Executive Office of Food Resources and Security

Sponsors: Rep. Ferrante, Rep. Kane, Sen. Tarr

Purpose: This legislation creates a new chapter in the General Laws titled the Executive Office of Food Resources and Security. Under the chapter, food producers have a new EO setup to look after and regulate their needs. The new Secretariat is to carry out policy relative to food production, including fostering and supporting food producers so they are able to effectively and safely produce, market and sell food in a sustainable manner throughout the Commonwealth; promote job creation and economic development in food production and local food distribution; develop and administer programs and incentives to improve nutrition and promote healthy eating habits across all age groups; and undertake other enumerated initiatives.

Farming and Food System: Protecting the land and resources necessary to produce food while maximizing the environmental benefits of agriculture and fishing and the preservation of agricultural land.

H119/S60 An Act addressing the impact of climate change on farms and fisheries

Sponsors: Rep. Domb, Sen. Fernandes

Purpose: This legislation is modeled after the very successful Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program, this bill would create an Agriculture and Fishery Vulnerability Preparedness Grant Fund to support farms and fisheries in planning and implementing climate change adaptation and resiliency initiatives. These include, but are not limited to, controlled climate growing, energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate resilient management practices, nature-based solutions, and data collection and monitoring. The grant program would also support technical assistance for farms and fisheries to navigate the funding landscape to support appropriate applications.

H735/S392 An Act relative to food literacy

Sponsors: Rep. Vargas, Rep. Domb, Sen. Lewis

Purpose: This bill ensures DESE offers food literacy standards for school districts and creates a Food Literacy Trust Fund to assist with procurement of curriculum materials and professional development.

H130/S52 An Act relative to membership updates for the Massachusetts Food Policy Council

Sponsors: Rep. Kane, Sen. Comerford

Purpose: The Massachusetts Food Policy Council was established in 2010 to promote the production, accessibility, and consumption of Massachusetts-grown foods. The statewide Council, which includes legislators, executive agency representatives, and industry appointees, meets publicly at least four times each year and focuses on initiatives to increase local food access, protect resources, and support the economic viability of local food systems. This bill adds representatives from the Division of Marine Fisheries and the UMass Agricultural Extension to the Council and allows members of the Council’s advisory committee to receive compensation for their time, ensuring that the Council has representation from all food system stakeholders and that non-government members of the advisory committee are compensated equitably for their valuable time and participation.

Economic Development: Recognizing the significant impact to local, regional, and state economies, supporting the increase of production, sales, and consumption of Massachusetts-farmed food and seafood and creating jobs and improving wages in food, farming, and fisheries.

H111/S53 An Act promoting equity in agriculture

Sponsors: Rep. Blais, Sen. Comerford

Purpose: According to the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, BIPOC farmers are represented on only 2.3% of the Commonwealth’s farms, farms that steward just .3% of the land in farming and sell just .4% of the market value of agricultural goods in Massachusetts, despite people of color making up 29% of the state’s population. This bill will establish a commission charged with developing recommendations for MDAR to equitably serve socially disadvantaged farmers to address these disparities.

S69 An Act to promote economic opportunities for cottage food entrepreneurs

Sponsor: Sen. Oliveira

Purpose: This bill permits cottage food entrepreneurs to make and sell safe foods from their home kitchens while tasking DPH to create uniform standards for cottage food operations and the sale of cottage foods. The bill codifies the definition and labeling requirements of cottage foods from Massachusetts' existing residential retail kitchen rules, exempting direct-to-consumer cottage food producers from licensing requirements and creating a voluntary registration for cottage food businesses.

S2331 An Act defining agritourism

Sponsor: Sen. E. Kennedy

Purpose: This bill establishes a definition of agritourism in the General Laws.