Assembly Commerce, Economic Development and Agriculture Committee Statement to Assembly, No. 5093 (2025)

Summary

An Assembly Commerce, Economic Development and Agriculture Committee statement to Assembly, No. 5093, State of New Jersey, dated March 6, 2025, reporting the bill favorably with committee amendments. The bill would set State-level geographic purchase preferences for local foods bought for school meals under the federal Local Food for Schools (LFS) program and similar programs. The statement says federal law allows such foods from in-State producers or producers within 400 miles of the destination school. School food authorities and their vendors would, to the greatest extent practicable, prefer foods produced within State borders or a 100-mile radius, giving the highest preference to in-State farmers and food producers.

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ASSEMBLY COMMERCE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND AGRICULTURE
COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY,
No. 5093

with
committee amendments

STATE
OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: March 6,
2025

The Assembly Commerce, Economic Development and
Agriculture Committee reports favorably, and with committee amendments,
Assembly Bill No. 5093.

As amended by the committee, this bill would establish
purchase preference requirements that are to be satisfied in association with
the procurement of local and regional foods for school meal program purposes.

The Local Food for Schools (LFS) Cooperative Agreement
Program is a federal program, operated by the Agricultural Management Service
in the United States Department of Agriculture, which enables the federal
government to enter into cooperative agreements, with individual states, to
provide such states with federal financial assistance to facilitate their
procurement of local and regional foods, from small businesses, from local and
regional farmers and food producers, and from socially disadvantaged farmers
and food producers, and their distribution of such local and regional foods, to
students at participating schools, as part of the National School Lunch Program
and federal School Breakfast Program. Under the existing provisions of federal
law, local and regional foods which are procured, for students, under the LFS
program must either be procured from in-State farmers and food producers or
from farmers and food producers (whether in-State or out-of-State) who are
located within 400 miles of the destination school.

This bill would establish complimentary, State-level
geographic purchase preference requirements to ensure that the food procurement
activities being undertaken by school food authorities, by food service
management companies (FSMCs), and by other contracted third-party food service
providers, pursuant to the LFS program and other similar State and federal laws
and programs, are focused on the procurement of foods and food products from a
more localized area and, primarily, from in-State farmers and food producers.

Specifically, the bill would provide that, whenever a
school food authority, or a FSMC or other third-party food service vendor,
receives federal or State-level funding under the LFS program, or under any
other similar federal or State program designed to encourage or facilitate the
procurement of local or regional foods for students at participating schools,
the school food authority, FSMC, or other third-party vendor will be required,
to the greatest extent practicable, to: 1) give geographic preference to the
procurement, for such purposes, of foods and food products which are grown or
otherwise produced within State borders or a 100-mile radius of the destination
school; and 2) among those foods and food products which are grown or produced
within State borders or 100 miles of the destination school, give geographic
preference to the procurement of foods and food products that have been grown
or otherwise produced by in-State farmers and food producers within State
borders or that 100-mile radius.

The bill would require any school food service
contract, which is executed between a school food authority and a FSMC or other
third-party vendor, to contain provisions setting forth, and requiring ongoing
compliance with, the bill’s geographic preference requirements, and it would
further require each school food authority, FSMC, and other third-party meals
service vendor to maintain and regularly submit, to the Department of
Agriculture, appropriate records and other documentation demonstrating ongoing
compliance with the bill’s geographic preference requirements.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS :

The committee amended the bill to:

(1) give preference to the procurement of foods and
food products which are grown or otherwise produced within State borders or a 100-mile
radius of the destination school, instead of only a 100-mile radius as
originally provided by the bill;

(2) give the highest preference to the procurement of
foods and food products that have been grown or otherwise produced by in-State
farmers and food producers within State borders or a 100-mile radius, instead
of only a 100-mile radius as originally provided by the bill; and

(3) require the Secretary of Agriculture, instead of
the Commissioner of Environmental Protection, to adopt rules and regulations to
implement the provisions of the bill.

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