Senate committee votes to advance bill formalizing ‘Vermonters Feeding Vermonters’ grant program

The Vermont Senate Committee on Agriculture voted 5-0 on May 6 to report H.167 out of committee, a bill that would establish a grant program at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to formalize and fund the Vermont Food Bank’s Vermonters Feeding Vermonters program.

Counsel Grady summarized the measure as creating a grant program at the Agency of Agriculture to provide ongoing appropriations for the program, which the Vermont Food Bank has administered since 2018 and which purchases local food from Vermont farms and issues subgrants to network partners to buy directly from farms.

The bill includes a multi-part definition of “local food” that varies by product type: raw agricultural products must be grown exclusively in Vermont; certain animal products must be produced primarily from animals raised in Vermont; processed products must have a majority of raw-ingredient inputs from Vermont and either be processed in Vermont or have…