Please take 10-15 minutes to submit written testimony for LD 468 by 9AM on Thursday, March 6, 2025.
LD-468: An Act to Address Food Insecurity by Helping Maine Residents Access Locally Produced Food
This bill would double the State Nutrition Incentive Fund to $1.2million per year, AND make the funding ongoing. This not only means more money for low-income Mainers to spend directly with farmers, it means that we likely wouldn’t have to spend so much time and energy advocating for this funding with every legislative cycle.
Want to help? It’s easy!
We’re lucky to already have plenty of people coming on Thursday to testify in person at the hearing in Augusta. What we really need now is written testimony from shoppers, vendors, and anybody who cares about public health and our local food system–we are ALL stakeholders in this!
Start by:
1) reading the information below,
2) personalize the included template,
3) and then follow the Directions to Submit (keep scrolling down!).
TEMPLATE
Please copy and paste the template testimony below and update it with your relevant information:
Testimony of [NAME HERE] of [TOWN NAME HERE] before the 132st Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry
Dear members of the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry.
My name is [NAME HERE], I am a resident of [TOWN NAME HERE], and I am here today as a [Farmer? Shopper? Market organizer? – LIST YOUR ROLE THAT IS RELEVANT TO farmers’ markets ] to express my support of LD 468 – An Act to Address Food Insecurity by Helping Maine Residents Access Locally Produced Food.
(Share your personal experience with the program. Pull from the talking points below.)
TALKING POINTS
These are prompts intended to help you brainstorm. Feel free to pick and choose what may be relevant or important to YOU. Legislators love personal anecdotes and specific numbers.
For market organizers and farmers:
- The need:
- Name the markets you sell/vend at….
- How is your market organized (any paid staff? All volunteer run?)?
- Any info you have on hand about current MHB redemption and potential for growth
- Why the program is great:
- Your market gets to welcome shoppers using SNAP; new relationships; new customers; new sales; (Name total SNAP & MHB sales, estimate is ok!)
- Your market & farm is accomplishing its community mission of helping to fight food insecurity & feed all members of the community.
- Any other reasons you’d like to list…
- What this $$$ means for you and your market(s). These funds will:
- Help cover the cost of the bonus bucks redemption for folks to purchase fruits and vegetables with
- Help promote the program to get more community members using SNAP to your market
- Help cover the costs of your info booth staff or volunteer program.
- Help cover EBT equipment costs for your market
- Any personal anecdote you want to share;
- Please note the importance of CONTINUOUS FUNDING at the $1.2 million level per year. If it is continuous, then the market (and MFFM) can plan for growth and expansion of the program without any funding uncertainties or interruption.
For shoppers who use, or have used, Maine Harvest Bucks:
- How has MHB helped your household?
- If any of the below items ring true to you, then describe them in your testimony
- Opportunity to support local w/ your SNAP/EBT dollars
- Higher quality food access than stores in your area
- Your $$$ goes further at FM’s because of MHB
- Opportunity for your children (and yourself!?) to see and learn about food at markets
- Any health issues that MHB has helped thanks to improved diet
- What would continued funding for MHB mean for you? What would a boost back to 1 to 1 matching mean for you?
- Greater food security?
- Anything else?
DIRECTIONS TO SUBMIT
- Click here to begin. Then click “Public Hearing”.
- Then click: “Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry” from the drop-down menu.
- Then, under “Choose Date”, click “March 6 2025 9:00am”
- Then, click LD 468.
- You’ll see an option to submit written testimony.
- You should click that you are FOR the proposed legislation.
- The rest is self explanatory. MAKE SURE YOU CLICK SUBMIT.
THANK YOU for your help. Read on below for more information about the importance of this funding:
Why now?
Nutrition incentive programs, like Maine Harvest Bucks, boost small business viability and rural economies. State funding is the natural progression for nutrition incentive programs across the country, including in MA and NH. There are unprecedented funding challenges on the near horizon without state funds, and major uncertainties about income-based food access in general.
Overview & Context in Maine
Millions of dollars of federal SNAP/EBT funds (formerly known as food stamps) are spent in Maine every month to help Mainers, mostly children and senior citizens, get the food they need to stay healthy. Our programs incentivize shoppers to keep those dollars in the local economy, going to local Maine farmers and food producers. These shoppers get more food for their budget, thanks to our incentives.
MFFM, as part of a network of organizations that run nutrition incentive programs, requests an annual ongoing allocation of $1.2 million per year be allocated to the State Fund to Address Food Security and Provide Nutrition Incentives housed within the DACF. We request that this budget be funded continuously to support and strengthen the excellent nutrition incentive programs benefiting every Maine county.
Nutrition incentive programs in Maine, like Maine Harvest Bucks and Farm Fresh Rewards, boost local farm viability while helping low-income Mainers eat healthier and stretch their limited food assistance dollars. Our programs incentivize low-income Mainers using SNAP/EBT to spend their food dollars with local farmers and food producers at farmers’ markets, farm stands, CSA’s and stores.
- Every year, over 400 Maine farmers and food producers benefit from the additional sales through this program.
- Every $1 of state support yields $3 from the federal government, $1 from a matching USDA grant and $1 from SNAP, to provide low-income shoppers using SNAP additional purchasing power to buy local fruits and vegetables from Maine producers.
- Our programs led to over $1.2 million in sales to Maine producers in 2024 alone
- Nutrition incentive programs benefit Mainers in all 16 counties, and state funding will allow for further expansion to rural and under-served communities in Maine.
- Over 15,000 Maine households benefit each year, and this number continues to grow.
- The majority of participants report feeling healthier, learning to cook new nutritious foods, and relying less on the emergency food system.
- This funding makes up almost 10% of sales for farmers at Maine farmers’ markets. With razor-thin margins and compounding challenges, farmers need every dollar of those sales to stay viable.