Call to Action: Contact State Senators about food system priorities in the environmental bond bill! The Massachusetts Senate Committee on Ways and Means has released their environmental bond bill proposal (S.3050). Senators have introduced amendment and will debate the bond bill on April 15th. Bond bills are important as they authorize funding for capital [...]
Categories
Featured posts
Call to action: Senate to debate environmental bond on April 15, 2026
Call to Action:
Contact State Senators about food system priorities in the environmental bond bill!
The Massachusetts Senate Committee on Ways and Means has released their environmental bond bill proposal (S.3050). Senators have introduced amendment and will debate the bond bill on April 15th. Bond bills are important as they authorize funding for capital grant programs like APR, FSIG, climate smart agriculture, and others, and are an opportunity to pass meaningful food system policy.
Senators may choose to show support for various amendments. Your senator needs to hear from you about the items that are most important to you, so please take this opportunity to review the amendments in this email, and contact your senator by 5pm on April 14th to let them know your priorities. You can use this template to reach out to your state senator.
The Collaborative has prioritized the following four amendments:
#43. Working Capital Loan Program, $10,000,000, Senator Comerford. This amendment will create a program, capitalized with $10 million, to support farmers with low-interest loans to aid in resilience, disaster recovery, market barriers and other needs. Right now, MDAR has no dedicated resources to support farmers when events like barn fires happen, and this program will fill that gap.
#188. MDAR Buy-Protect-Sell Capitalization, $10,000,000, Senator Lovely. This amendment will authorize $10 million of funding for MDAR’s new (as of November 2024), authority to buy, protect, and sell farmland to farmers at an affordable price. To make sure more farmland stays in agriculture MDAR needs resources to make those purchases, protect them, and then sell to farmers at affordable prices.
#199. PFAS Farmer Relief Fund and Land Application Ban, $50,000,000, Senator Comerford. This amendment bans sewage sludge from being land applied in Massachusetts, starting in 2030. Sewage sludge consistently has the highest levels of PFAS (also known as forever chemicals) contamination of any product of the wastewater treatment process. When applied on land (including farmland), the PFAS in that sludge can contaminate the soil, produce, livestock, wildlife, and people who work and eat from that land. The amendment also establishes the Agricultural PFAS Relief Fund and authorizes $50 million to help support farm businesses and protect them from PFAS contamination and the many implications of that contamination.
#251. Urban Agriculture Grant Program, $5,000,000, Senator Gomez. This amendment will authorize $5 million for the urban agriculture grant program. This will support urban food producers and help realize the goals of the Vacant Lots to Urban Agriculture bill, also sponsored by Senator Gomez and passed in the Senate’s FARM omnibus bill.
These four amendments represent a significant boost to agricultural capital grant programs and the growth of a sustainable, equitable, resilient food system. Together, these amendments are 2% of the $3.64 billion bond.
The Collaborative also supports the following amendments:
#12. Massachusetts Food Trust Program, $5,000,000, Senator Moore. This amendment will increase the amount authorized for the Massachusetts Food Trust Program from $5M to $10M. This program provides grants and loans for food retail operations in food deserts across the Commonwealth, and demand has outstripped available authorizations.
#16. DMF Funding, $10,000,000, Senator Tarr. This amendment will increase the amount authorized in the Division of Marine Fisheries line item from $5 million to $15 million. This will allow DMF to support more fishermen with grants.
#263. Stockbridge School of Agriculture Tuition Equity, Senator Edwards.
This amendment will add the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School’s associate degree program to free community college as established by the Legislature. This program is the only two-year program not currently covered by free community college policy.
Please share this call to action with your networks!
Promoting Food Literacy
The Collaborative leads a Campaign for Food Literacy which aims to ensure all Massachusetts K-12 students have access to food system education in school so they can learn about food systems, including topics such as agriculture, nutrition, food justice, and culinary skills. We are excited to share a Food Literacy White Paper & Action Guide to elevate the importance of all students across the Commonwealth learning about food systems in school.
What is Food Literacy?
Food literacy is having the knowledge and skills needed to navigate a complex food system – the web of actors and activities from food production to disposal – in ways that support individual and community health, the economy, and the environment.
Food literacy standards should promote an understanding of food systems including but not limited to:
- nutrition and the impact of diet on personal health;
- culinary skills and menu planning;
- food production, including farming, fishing, and processing;
- the connections between the food system and the environment;
- hunger, its causes and efforts to alleviate it;
- racial and other inequities in access to food and jobs in the food system;
- cultural connections to food;
- local food producers and their livelihoods; and,
- careers in the food system
Why is Food Literacy Important?
- Students who are food literate are better equipped to make healthier choices.
- Students who experience hands-on food education have improved educational outcomes.
- Students who are food literate are more civically engaged and prepared for civic life.
- Students who are food literate are prepared for careers in the food system and beyond.
- Students who are food literate make better choices for their communities and environments.
“When we teach students about how food is grown; different cultural aspects of food; how to cook food and then pair that with a high quality, scratch cooked school food program, we are able to provide students with the education and tools needed to develop life long healthy eating habits. Food is such a powerful educational tool that can tap into children’s creativity, food identity, interest in sustainability and so much more.”
-Campaign for Food Literacy Steering Committee MemberWhat examples of food education are there in Massachusetts?
There are many great examples of teachers, schools, and districts providing food systems education. Our Action Guide provides a range of vignettes on the many ways people are promoting food literacy around the state.
How do we ensure all students are food literate upon graduation?
Currently, some students learn about food in school through classroom lessons, school gardens, cafeteria programming, field trips, and more. However, across Massachusetts, there is inequitable and limited access to food system education.
- Food literacy is not included in the Massachusetts state frameworks,
- Food education is often championed by one or a few passionate individuals making it difficult to sustain if the champion leaves, and
- Access to resources varies by school, even within a district
To provide equitable, consistent access to food system education and foster food literacy,
Massachusetts must make systemic changes that require and support meeting food literacy educational standards in every school district. Incorporating food literacy into educational standards is an essential step towards ensuring equitable access to food education for all students. Read more about the vision and our campaign’s approach in the White Paper.
Senate passes FARM bill
On April 1, the Senate unanimously passed An Act Fostering Agricultural Resilience in Massachusetts! Many thanks to Senator Comerford for championing this bill for the past several sessions, you can listen to her speech on the floor here. Additional speeches in support were made by Senate Ways and Means Chair Rodrigues and Senate Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Chair Fernandes (read his thoughts on the bill here!).
The final amended bill includes a number of Collaborative priorities; codifying HIP and FSIG in law, vacant lots to farms bill, next generation farmer fund, agritourism definition, development of an agricultural land registry, calling for MEMA to include the food system in emergency planning, and more.
Several amendments were adopted that added a ban on rollback taxes if PFAS is discovered on agricultural land, property tax relief for agricultural buildings, including DMF in MEMA’s food system planning efforts, creating a food tourism task force, and a study on agricultural schools.
Next, the bill still needs to be passed by the House, and any changes between the House and Senate proposals will have to be resolved by a conference committee before the bill is sent to the Governor for her signature, so please follow the steps in the above call to action to support this bill! Read the Editorial Board of the Boston Globe in support of the bill here.
