Legislative Update

The 84th Texas Regular Legislative Session is deep into debate and other deliberations; as of late March almost 8,500 bills had been filed. Our Feeding Texas “ask” for increased funding of the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Surplus Agriculture grant - providing very low-cost Texas produce to food banks – has been through hearings in the House and Senate and faces a still uncertain future.  The House and Senate differ in their proposed funding of our “ask”, but neither approaches the $18M requested.

(Click on image for larger view)

Texas may be a large state, but our state’s investment in hunger relief through food banks is overshadowed by many other states, as seen in the illustration below. Currently, Texas provides $2.9M/biennium, an investment of $1.71. per food insecure household to assist food bank acquisition of fresh surplus produce and other food. Our $18M/biennium “ask” would bring this Texas’ investment to help food insecure children and their families to $10.61.  

It is not possible to predict the fate of our quest to significantly fund access to far more fresh produce to support and scale strategic programs which help move people out of poverty.  We will keep pressing for full funding – and working our way through a very crowded field of legislative initiatives.