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Food Policy Council and Department of Environmental Protection outline statewide data, grant gaps and incentive programs
Summary
Pennsylvania's Food Policy Council and DEP described baseline food-waste data and a convening role for eight agencies; witnesses urged statewide coordination, sustainable funding for DEP's Food Infrastructure Recovery grants, and state investment in nutrition‑incentive programs such as Food Bucks.
Dawn Plummer, director of the Pennsylvania Food Policy Council, told the Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee that the council convenes eight state agencies (Aging, Agriculture, Community and Economic Development, Education, Environmental Protection, Health, Human Services, and Labor & Industry) and a 16-member advisory committee to align policy on food security, nutrition and food‑waste reduction.
Plummer cited the Department of Environmental Protection's 2022 statewide food-waste assessment: about 17% of Pennsylvania's municipal waste stream is organic material and an estimated 72% of that organic waste is edible food. She said the Food Policy Council is conducting planning and mapping work — funded in part by an EPA grant — to locate where waste is generated, the distribution of recovery organizations, and where processing infrastructure such as composters or anaerobic digesters could be sited. Plummer said DEP's Food Infrastructure Recovery Grant Program has had several funding rounds since 2019 but the program's revenue source (the recycling fund) is not sustainable long term and those grants are dwindling.
Julia Koprack of the Food Trust described nutrition-incentive programs (commonly called "food bucks") that add dollars for fruits and vegetables for SNAP shoppers, citing pilots at farmers markets and the Reading Terminal Market. She noted that more than 20 states have publicly funded incentive programs and encouraged the committee to consider enabling legislation and state funding to expand Pennsylvania's programs. Koprack also highlighted the Fresh Food Financing Initiative for grocery investment and the Keystone Fresh Act as a tool to connect schools to local purchasing.
Ending: Witnesses asked lawmakers to support sustained funding for DEP's infrastructure grants, consider legislation or budget support for nutrition incentives and grocery financing, and to incorporate the Food Policy Council's forthcoming action plan into broader state planning.
