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Fooding bill format for Procurement

welcome back everybody to our video series at cfsa on the farm bill 2023 uh and our legislative and policy push leading towards that uh for policy change uh my name is Matt niece I am the South Carolina policy coordinator for cfsa and I'm Jalen Cates and I work in North Carolina also on the policy team at cfsa well once again we thank you for joining us Jaylen if you could take just a few moments and kind of talk about procurement as well as the fresh produce procurement Reform Act and why people watch this video should care yeah definitely thanks Matt um so there were several things that we've learned recently um one through covid uh one was that uh you know local Regional Food Systems could really stand up and um be the backbone for our food supply chains during a time of emergency uh and the second thing we learned was that USTA needed to change their way of procuring emergency food to better access those local and Regional markets so uh the fresh produce procurrent Reform Act is a marker Bill we've talked about marker bills before uh which are basically bills designed to gain traction and interest in you know a topic uh or a theme towards the farm bill so fppra is a marker bill that would create a new emergency food distribution program and model at USDA based on what was learned through covid and the programs done by USC a during covet so is the model going to be based kind of off usda's Farmers feeding families program um and if so how does that compare to cfs's existing program Farm share yeah it's it's very similar um Farmers feeding families you know evolved over the pandemic um starting off it was very much so sourcing from um a few States and from large uh large Distributors um and in its later iterations was starting to Source from you know more smaller and mid-sized Growers and from um socially disadvantaged producers um and that's you know what our program at cbsa Farm share started off from the beginning was the goal to Source from small mid-size bipod producers to serve you know folks in need during coven and that's what fppra would do um it instructs USDA to you know create this new emergency feeding program where they would partner with existing farmers and Distributors and food hubs to practice and pack and distribute fresh fruits and vegetables with non-profit Partners um and they would have access to more nutritious fresher food because they would have been sourced locally um and it would instruct USDA to consider different things than just lowest cost in their bidding process which is a really big deal so it changes the way USDA does are bidding it allows them to prioritize sourcing from small Regional bipod social disadvantaged producers over just the lowest cost so it really is taking the lessons that they learned in putting it into action in this new program so it sounds like this is almost a type of almost a guaranteed income for Farmers but one of the things we found during covid was um just how uncertain markets were for a lot of these socially disadvantaged producers so I mean from a market stability standpoint it seems like this is pretty critical for a lot of so not just socially disadvantaged producers but you know rural producers in general um and producers of all types so um from our members perspective um let me ask you I mean how can people support this bill as a marker bill and the inclusions of its Provisions within the mark the overall Farm Bill next year yeah so I mean just just a quick example I mean there was there were supposed to rural North Carolina who were trying to help feed their Community during covet but farmer-speaking family boxes they tried to get in on that they couldn't get in on it and then all this free food ended up getting shipped in from out of state into their Community which was great for folks in need but it was like a double whammy for you know a farm business that had lost their business was trying to serve folks in need and now all of a sudden there's a bunch of free food there to serve their community so how much better would have been for that food have been sourced locally supporting that local economy so it's really the fix and so folks like that they're taking the lead and getting out in front they're meeting with Congressman David Rouser in District Seven uh to tell him you know how this impacts their Farm business and how these changes should there be another emergency like covid would really benefit both communities and producers so folks can reach out to us the food system advocacy Coalition is starting to engage on this issue um and Matt and I will be meeting with our Congressional Delegation over 2023 uh to ask for folks to co-sign and sponsor the fppra so please let us know and and we'll get you in touch with your Congressional office and schedule a meeting with you and figure out a way that um we can all Advocate together that's awesome and then we it's safe to say we need people from both Carolinas to join us on this advocacy push especially for procurement so um we're glad you could join us today uh it's very important information uh we're glad you could uh take the time to learn a little bit more about what the farm bill does um so thank you for watching uh we look forward to catching you on our next video and until then this is Matt and Jalen signing off hi