Committee hears bid to add one-time milk funds to Farm-to-Food-Shelf base funding

Senators Mary Kupak and Mark Abler on behalf of the Committee introduced companion bills, Senate File 629 and Senate File 257, that would add a 2023 supplement of $250,000 a year for milk into the Farm to Food Shelf program’s base appropriation.

Kupak told the panel the Farm to Food Shelf program, implemented by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, was established in 2016 to help Feeding America food banks purchase milk and protein and to pay for harvesting and handling of excess produce. She said the program’s base funding currently is $1,700,000 per year and that the $250,000 a year added in 2023 for fiscal years 2024–25 to cover additional milk purchases was not added into the program base.

Sophie Wallerstadt, public affairs manager for Second Harvest Heartland, said the Minnesota cluster of five Feeding America food banks serves the state and that, in fiscal 2024, the network provided about 45,300,000 meals. Wallerstadt and Lindsay Akhaneck, Second Harvest’s director of sourcing and demand planning, described the program’s distribution path from farmers and purchases to volunteer centers and then to food shelves. Akhaneck said most state and federal funding to Second Harvest is federal, but farm-to-food-shelf grants make up a substantial portion of the state funding they receive.

Akhaneck said the entirety of the FY24 funds were spent in the first four months of the year, illustrating high demand, and noted the program was able to negotiate a lower milk price in 2023 that saved about $0.12 per pound. She said FY25 spending has been slower because of poor growing conditions and lower farmer donations; several food banks have already spent their FY25 milk funds and are using internal resources to supplement.

Virginia Witherspoon, executive director of Channel One Regional Food Bank in Rochester, told the committee her region distributed almost 19,000,000 pounds of food in 2024, up from about 14,000,000 in 2023, and reported a 40% increase in new shopper registrations in 2024. Witherspoon said Farm to Food Shelf supplies roughly half to 15% of the milk needed in her service region and that declining donations and higher retail rescue volumes cannot fully replace the program’s produce and milk contributions.

Chair Putnam laid Senate Files 629 and 257 over for possible inclusion. The transcript records no vote on the bills; the committee designated the items for further consideration.