The Massachusetts legislature is introducing many bills in the 2025-26 session that relate to recommendations made in the 2015 Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan, the 2020 Perspectives on Resilience and Recovery report, and the 2023 Farmland Action Plan. This list includes bills that most closely align with goals and recommendations from the Local Food Action Plan. We encourage committees to consider these bills, and look forward to working with legislators to further shape these and other bills that move the Commonwealth toward a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable food system. (To see bills from the previous session, along with testimony we submitted, click here.)
FAQs for advocates
Sen. Adam Gomez SD. 1093 / Rep. Pat Duffy HD. 1872
These bills aim to support the conversion of vacant lots and underutilized land in environmental justice communities into urban farms, community gardens, and other agricultural enterprises. Urban agriculture supports increased economic development, food security, and climate and heat resilience. This idea was inspired by work of Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Nuestras Raices, as mentioned in the state’s 2023 Resilient Lands Initiative. GrowBoston has also been working hard at transforming vacant lots into urban farms and gardens.
Sen. Jason Lewis SD.1235 / Reps. Andres Vargas and Mindy Domb HD.2100
To help Massachusetts children lead healthy, independent, thoughtful lives, all students in grades K-12 should have access to food system education in school. These bills will add food literacy to the list of topics that students should learn about in school, and provide the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) with opportunities and resources to support those lessons.
Sen. Jo Comerford SD.2176 / Rep. James Arena-Derosa HD.3814
These bills will provide financial and liability relief should farmers’ ability to grow crops be impacted by PFAS, establish an account to support technical assistance and education to help farmers adapt to new practices that reduce the use and dispersion of PFAS, and ban the spreading of biosolids on land.
Sen. Jo Comerford SD.2144 / Rep. Natalie Blais HD.3621
Farmers in Massachusetts struggle to remain sustainable, on average earning just 95 cents for every dollar they spend producing food. They must compete in the global marketplace while facing higher input costs, more restrictive regulations, and fewer supportive resources than farmers in other states. These bills will establish a $3 million Next Generation Farmers Fund to provide education grants, direct MEMA to incorporate food production capacity into disaster planning, allow MDAR to protect whole farms in the APR program, establish a state food system coordinator position, allows MDAR additional authority as land is being sold, and more.
Sen. Jo Comerford SD.1015 / Rep. Natalie Blais HD.2703
According to the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, BIPOC farmers are represented on only 3% of the Commonwealth’s farms, farms that steward just .3% of the land in farming and sell just .4% of the market value of agricultural goods in the Massachusetts, despite people of color making up 32% of the state’s population. These bills will establish a commission charged with developing recommendations for MDAR to equitably serve socially disadvantaged farmers to address these disparities.
Sen. Jo Comerford SD.829 / Reps. Mindy Domb and Andres Vargas HD.2197
The Healthy Incentives Program leverages federal SNAP funds by increasing SNAP recipients’ ability to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables directly from farmers, improving health outcomes for vulnerable communities and increasing sales for local farms. These bills will establish the framework for the program’s long-term sustainability.
Reps. Dan Donahue and Pat Duffy HD.448
Many state agencies play roles in supporting and regulating the food system, but because of limited communication between them some of these efforts are duplicative, inefficient, or even contradictory. This bill will establish a state food system coordinator position to serve in an advisory capacity to all agencies to coordinate and inventory food programs, and develop and track metrics related to food system goals.
Sen. Jo Comerford SD.834 / Rep. Hannah Kane HD.403
Thousands of tons of edible food are sent to landfills each year because of donors’ concerns about liability, and because diverting it to those who need it can be costly. These bills will provide civil liability protection for individuals and food establishments who donate food directly to consumers, and a tax credit to Massachusetts farmers in the amount of the fair market value of the donated food, with a $25,000 annual cap per farmer.
Sen. Jo Comerford SD.1673 / Reps. Natalie Blais and Hannah Kane HD.2701
Article 99 of the Massachusetts Constitution authorizes lower tax rates for agricultural land, but only on parcels greater than five acres. Changes in management practices have made farming on smaller parcels more sustainable, the subdividing of large tracts of land means many farmers farm on multiple smaller parcels, and rising land prices put larger parcels out of reach for many farmers, particularly beginning farmers and farmers of color. This proposed amendment will remove the acreage requirement, making farmland of any size eligible for tax relief.
We also work with many partners who advocate for important food issues. Check out their policy priorities here!
Letters and testimony submitted by the Collaborative:
