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Grow Pittsburgh and delegation press for larger food‑system funding as federal cuts loom
Summary
Grow Pittsburgh urged stronger state support for food assistance and local agriculture. Committee staff said the governor proposes an $8 million increase across two programs (a $4M increase each to the State Food Purchase program and PA Agricultural Surplus System) and members said they will push to raise those amounts in negotiations given federal cuts to emergency food programs.
At the Penn Hills event, Danielle Houston of Grow Pittsburgh asked how the proposed budget invests in local food systems and food assistance. Committee staff and representatives described increases in the governor’s proposal and flagged the programmatic context.
Courtney Richardson said the governor’s budget includes a total proposed increase of $8 million “related to food assistance programs,” broken into a $4 million increase for the State Food Purchase program and a $4 million increase for the Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System. Delegation members said they are pushing to enlarge those increases to better offset recent and proposed federal reductions to emergency food programs.
Representative Emily Kincaid and others framed the increase as a floor of needs: Kincaid urged negotiators to seek the full requests from advocacy groups and to view food assistance funding as a tool that supports farmers, processors and retailers as well as food‑insecure households.
No final appropriation decisions were made at the briefing. Delegation members said they will apply bargaining leverage in negotiations to preserve or increase food assistance funding and invited local partners to provide detailed requests and data.
