Office of Farm to Fork: California Healthy Food Procurement Fund Program.

Existing law creates the Office of Farm to Fork within the Department of Food and Agriculture, and requires the office, to the extent that resources are available, to work with various entities, including, among others, the agricultural industry and other organizations involved in promoting food access, to increase the amount of agricultural products available to underserved communities and schools in the state. This bill would require the office, on or before January 1, 2028, to establish the California Healthy Food Procurement Fund Program for purposes of cultivating equity, nurturing students, building climate resilience, supporting California agriculture, and creating scalable and sustainable change in the school food system. The bill would require that the program increase procurement of healthy foods, including for institutions serving pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive. The bill would authorize the office, to the extent that funding is available, to implement initiatives under the program, including, but not limited to, an initiative to provide funding to approved vendors to procure foods that are whole or are minimally processed and are grown or produced in California using climate-smart agriculture practices and climate-smart agriculture production systems, as specified. The bill would create the California Healthy Food Procurement Account in the Department of Food and Agriculture Fund, consisting of moneys from federal, state, industry, philanthropic, and private sources, which the bill would make available to the department upon appropriation by the Legislature for the purposes of the program.