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Committee lays over bill to move $4 million from dairy program to farm-to-school and change program rules
Summary
House File 2,785 would transfer $4,000,000 from a dairy program into the Farm to School (Farm to Institution) program, increase the program base to $5,275,000, and introduce policy changes to expand school purchasing of local products; the measure was laid over after committee discussion.
House File 2,785, introduced by Representative Vang, would move $4,000,000 of unspent funds from a dairy program into the state Farm to School (Farm to Institution) program and makes policy changes intended to create a new market for vulnerable, small producers to sell to schools.
The bill would replace an existing Farm to Institution base of $1,275,000 with $5,275,000 by transferring $4,000,000 from the dairy appropriation. Representative Vang said the funds were originally allocated in the prior biennium and have remained unspent; "this money is just sitting in the bank," she said, arguing those dollars could be better used to expand local procurement amid federal funding uncertainty for local food purchasing assistance.
Committee members questioned program demand and eligibility rules. Nonpartisan staff pointed to the bill language that deletes $1,275,000 and replaces it with $5,275,000. Department of Agriculture witness Kate Seybold told the committee that in fiscal year 2025 the recent round of grants received about $1,580,000 in requests from 73 applicants for the $1.275 million available. Seybold said the department was in the process of awarding the full FY25 appropriation and that no applicants had yet been turned away.
Representative Lawrence and others pressed on whether the entire $4,000,000 transfer was the right amount, with members saying they would prefer the department to identify an evidence-based need before committing the full sum. Representative Vang said she expected policy changes to increase participation and acknowledged the bill’s policy language needed additional refinement.
Representative Nelson asked about eligibility language modeled after the federal Local Food Purchase Assistance program, and Representative Vang said she did not have an exact count of eligible producers but estimated about 200 producers participate in the federal grant program; she said the eligibility language in the bill still needed work and she was open to fine tuning it.
Representative Vang renewed her motion and the bill was laid over for possible inclusion. No roll-call vote tally was recorded in the committee transcript.
