BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1321
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Date of Hearing: May 20, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
1321 (Ting) - As Introduced February 27, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill creates the Nutrition Incentive Matching Grant Program
(NIMG) in the Office of Farm to Fork (F2F) within the Department
of Food and Agriculture (DFA) to encourage the purchase and
consumption of fresh California fruits, nuts, and vegetables by
directly linking producers with certain public benefit
recipients.
The bill creates the NIMG account, allowing F2F to collect
matching funds from the federal Food Insecurity Nutrition
Incentives Grant Program and other public and private sources,
and requires F2F to establish minimum standards, funding
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schedules, and grant procedures, in consultation with the US
Department of Agriculture.
The bill requires F2F to distribute funds, subject to
appropriation in the budget, as grants to farmers' markets and
other small businesses that sell fresh California fruits, nuts,
and vegetables for use in market matching programs that double
the purchasing power of persons on public benefits.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Likely significant GF costs to DFA to establish the program,
apply for matching grants, solicit proposals, grant funds, and
oversee compliance among grant recipients, though the actual
amount will depend on the eventual funding and grant
applications.
2)Likely, though unknown, initial start-up GF costs, perhaps as
high as $5 million, to fund grants and apply for the federal
match, some or all of which may be repaid with matching funds
from grant recipients. Initial funding could be by direct
appropriation or included in the budget, however there is no
source of proposed funding currently in the bill.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, the 2014 federal Farm Bill
included $100 million in grant funding for programs such as
NIMG that incentivize healthier eating for Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, the federal funding source
for CalFresh) recipients. The author believes current demand
for market match programs exceeds available funding, and
grants are very competitive. In order to better position
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local programs to receive federal grants, this bill creates a
state program to apply for federal grants and award those
grants to local market match programs. The author believes a
state framework to oversee funding of market match programs
will leverage state resources and streamline local program
administration, expanding market match programs over a more
equitable distribution of communities.
The author contends California is uniquely positioned to
benefit from programs like market match, as it produces nearly
half of US-grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables and has over 700
certified farmers' markets statewide. Yet 24% of Californians
live in poverty and the state ranks 50th in SNAP participation
rate. The author claims scaling up market match programs
would incentivize more families to use their SNAP benefits,
ensuring more Californians eat what is grown in California.
2)Recipients and Benefit. Benefit recipients eligible to
receive additional funds include recipients under CalFresh,
the federal Women, Infants & Children program (WIC), the
federal Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program, and
Supplemental Security Income or State Supplementary Payment
recipients. Market match programs are designed to double the
value of fresh California fruits, nuts, and vegetables that
may be purchased by eligible benefit recipients by "matching"
the value of existing benefits.
3)Roots of Change Pilot. One of the bill's sponsors, Roots of
Change, used $1.9 million from a DFA specialty block grant to
create and fund a market match pilot program from 2009 to
2013. Roots of Change helped establish 14 community-based
partners operating in 17 counties, implementing the program in
140 markets and serving 37,000 families. Currently, the
program is funded by philanthropic sources at a reduced level,
thereby limiting its scope and benefit. The sponsor estimates
that a $2 million grant from USDA could generate purchases of
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$18 million, serve 100,000 clients, and generate hundreds of
farm jobs.
4)Current Market Match Programs. While this bill would
establish a market match program at the state level, there are
currently several market match programs operating in
California known as the California Farmers' Market Consortium.
These programs are run by a group of nonprofits and
cooperatives and already receive federal market match funds.
According to DFA, consumers in California were able to
purchase over $1.8 million in specialty crops using CalFresh
and WIC benefits between 2010 and 2012 through these local
programs.
Furthermore, while this bill would codify a Market Match
within DFA, such a program is not a necessary precondition to
receiving USDA funds. The benefits envisioned by this bill
are, in many cases, already being achieved through local
programs, and may also be achievable within DFA without
necessarily requiring the legislation proposed here.
5)Prior Legislation. This bill is substantially similar to AB
2385 (Ting), statutes of 2014. AB 2385 was held on the
Suspense File of this committee.
Analysis Prepared by:Joel Tashjian / APPR. / (916)
319-2081
AB 1321
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