Introduction of the Farm to Fridge Act of 2020

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MENG. Madam Speaker, I rise today to announce the introduction of my bill--The Farm to Fridge Act of 2020.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants across the country have been forced to close--and as a result, many farmers have been unable to sell their food. This has dramatically disrupted incomes and supply chains, and resulted in food waste. Meanwhile, families across the country are struggling to find new ways to purchase affordable food beyond grocery stores as they adhere to social distancing and experience disrupted food supplies.

In the face of COVID-19, farmers are eager to pivot from selling to restaurants wholesale to selling direct-to-consumer, but in order to do so, they need expensive machinery and marketing funds to make this transition. At the same time, merchants need support to expand direct producer-to-consumer markets to help communities access locally- and regionally-produced agriculture. All the while, consumers are eager to purchase food products locally and regionally.

The Farm to Fridge Act would bridge all these entities by expanding two existing programs for efforts to diversify farms' and merchants' customer bases: the Value Added Producer Grant program and the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program. Both of these programs will ultimately inject necessary capital to help both farmers and merchants to close gaps in our supply chain, supplement income to farmers, and increase food access for families.

I thank my colleague, Representative Fred Upton, for introducing this important, bipartisan measure and urge my colleagues to support it. After all, during this coronavirus pandemic, the last thing families should worry about is access to food.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source