State & Federal Local Food Policy Update
Wes King
State Policy Update
The Illinois General Assembly is once again in full swing. The deadline for bills to get out committee is the end of March. While, much of the larger legislative conversation is focused on budgets and the finances of state and local government, there were still over 4000 bills introduced in the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. Most of those bills will never make it out of committee ,but many will.
Below are a couple highlights or bills that Illinois Stewardship Alliance is prioritizing support for in our advocacy efforts. In addition to those highlights, attached you will find Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s bill tracker listing the food and farm related bills we are tracking and what our position is relative to those pieces of legislation.
HB2487 - Protecting Seed Libraries: exempts community based seed libraries from unnecessary rules and regulations in Illinois Seed Law that are geared towards commercial seed producers and sellers.
HB2486 - Cottage Food Expansion: expands where cottage food products can be sold to include on-farm, farm-stands and CSAs (no longer just farmers markets) for cottage food products where the signature or featured ingredient was produced on farm. As well as, an increase in the gross sales limit, an authorization for the IL Farmers Market Task Force to develop an expanded list of allowed products and a few more small but important changes. It also includes an exemption for charitable organizations doing bake sale fundraisers.
HB3340 - Farmers Market SNAP Incentive: creates a new competitive grant program modeled after successful private and federal government initiatives to provide grants for programs that incentivize the use of SNAP benefits at farmers markets similar to the Double-Value Coupon program organized by the LINK-UP Illinois initiative.
Don’t forget to sign up for our annual Local Food Lobby Day at the Capitol in Springfield on March 25th, this is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the legislative process and show your support for local food. Learn more and register by clicking here.
Also, for those looking for more information on the legislative process or simply a refresher I have attached Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s State Policy Advocacy Guide.
Federal Update
The current CNR expires at the end of September. Congress is beginning discussions and debates around the content of the reauthorization bill, it is one of the “must pass” bills of the summer,. As part of those conversations a bipartisan team of Senators and Representatives have introduced the Farm to School Act of 2015 a “marker bill” that seeks to influence the final outcome of the debate and the bill. The Farm to School Act of 2015 is an initiative of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Farm to School Network that is focused on increasing funding for the very competitive national grant program along with making some policy changes to clarify and and expand eligibility and access to the grant program to after school feeding programs, summer feeding programs and tribal communities.
To learn more about CNR and the Farm to School Act of 2015 Click here.
Interested in doing more than just learning? Consider showing your support by signing onto the National Farm to School Network’s Organizational sign-on letter of support and/or the individual citizen sign-on letter of support.
Sincerely,
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"Local Food Matters"