Davids Visits Local Farm, Announces New Bill to Strengthen Ag Supply Chains, Lower Grocery Costs

Today, Representative Sharice Davids visited the KC Farm School to announce her new bill aimed at strengthening local and regional food systems. Davids’ Resilient Food Supply Chain and Affordability Act would make permanent the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) Program, which is enhancing resilience within the food supply chain, supporting local farmers, creating jobs, and reducing grocery costs for consumers. She was joined by Kansas agriculture professionals who’ve benefited from the program.

“By strengthening our local and regional food systems, we are not only supporting our farmers and ranchers but also ensuring that families across Kansas have access to affordable, fresh food,” said Davids. “This new bill represents a vital step toward building a more resilient food supply chain that benefits everyone in our community.”

The RFSI program, created by the Davids-supported American Rescue Plan, aims to strengthen local and regional food systems by improving the middle of the food supply chain. It provides grants to state departments of agriculture to help small farms and food businesses grow, create new jobs, and increase access to healthy food products​. Strengthening agricultural supply chains helps lower grocery prices by improving efficiency, reducing operational expenses, enhancing local sourcing, and increasing resilience against disruptions.

"These grants will support improvements across the middle of our state's food supply chain, including increased food processing infrastructure, producer aggregation points, and product storage,” said Mike Beam, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture. “Investing in these Kansas food and farm businesses and other eligible organizations will create diverse local and regional market options and more economic opportunities for our Kansas communities.”

"Family farmers, ranchers, consumers, and our communities all benefit from a strong and resilient farm and food system,” said Donn Teske, President, Kansas Farmers Union. “Kansas Farmers Union supports providing incentives for a more decentralized food system, including processing and packing industries on the local and regional levels. We are proud to support the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program legislation brought forward in a bipartisan fashion by Representative Sharice Davids and look forward to working with Rep. Davids and her colleagues to champion this legislation in the near future."

“Cultivate KC believes that a thriving local food system is critical to the health and resilience of our communities,” said Brien Darby, Executive Director. “Investments in urban and small-scale producers and local supply chains are critical to build a strong local food system. We’ve been encouraged by the progress that recent federal investments are starting to make towards this goal and are excited that Rep. Davids and her colleagues are working to keep the momentum going with programs such as the Resilient Food System Infrastructure program and Local Food Purchase Assistance program in the next farm bill.”

The KC Farm School, which hosted Davids today, received $58,000 in RFSI investments to purchase a new van to improve transportation access for 70 growers across the Kansas City region. Cultivate KC, which also joined today’s discussion, received $25,000 in RFSI investments to purchase and install cold storage on the farms of three graduates from the New Roots program, a farm business program that helps refugee families start and operate farms.

To help lower costs, Davids, who was named a "Champion of the Shippers," has worked to shore up our domestic supply chains, which eases inflationary pressures for Kansans. Davids’ additional work to lower grocery costs and strengthen supply chains includes:

• Introducing bipartisan legislation to protect America's food and agriculture supply chain and address China's growing influence in critical agricultural sectors.
• Voting to pass the Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act to shore up the food and agriculture supply chain, assure fair competition in the meat and poultry sectors, and lower food and gasoline costs.
• Holding multipleroundtables with Kansas business, manufacturing, and technology leaders on how recent legislation to improve supply chains will help boost their businesses' financial security.
• Cosponsoring the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, a new law aimed at addressing supply chain snags and reducing dependence on goods produced outside of the United States.
• Working a "Sharice's Shift" at a local Price Chopper, where she helped store employees unload deliveries from shipping trucks, stock grocery shelves, and bag groceries.

Davids’ Resilient Food Supply Chain and Affordability Act is supported by the Kansas Department of Agriculture, Kansas Farmers Union, and Cultivate KC.