Show Support for H.B. 7013 to Ensure Local Food Gets to CT Schools
April 16, 2025
Urge your state legislators to support H.B. 7013, “An Act Concerning Enhancements To The Local Food For Schools Incentive Program and The CT Grown For CT Kids Grant Program,” currently under consideration. This bill strengthens our state’s local food incentive program and ensures continued funding for farm-to-school initiatives through the CT Grown for CT Kids Grant Program.
These two programs were abruptly terminated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To learn more about the value and impact they have – and what it will mean to lose them – we recommend this recent CT Insider piece.
This funding enabled them to supply fresh produce from local farms to pantries statewide. “The loss of this funding is immense,” a spokesperson for Connecticut Foodshare said, “and it has a direct impact on both the people we serve as well as our local farm partners. The program would have enabled us to provide millions of fresh, Connecticut-grown meals to the one in eight Connecticut residents (including one in six children) experiencing food insecurity.”
We have to ask ourselves, what could possibly be a higher priority than ensuring students and those facing food insecurity have access to nutritious food, while simultaneously supporting the economic health of Connecticut’s small farms?
Find your legislators here and tell them that you would like them to prioritize the passage of H.B. 7013 so that Connecticut can do the work of serving both our children and our small farms in lieu of federal government agencies that have decided not to.
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CT NOFA Launches Equipment Share Program
CT NOFA is proud to announce the launch of our Equipment Share Program. In partnership with The Hickories in Ridgefield, Connecticut, this program aims to provide both commercial farmers and home gardeners free access to both specialized equipment and expertise in a shared environment. Equipment Share days at The Hickories will include free soil analysis, seed winnowing services, nut cleaning, compost tea brewing workshops, and much more.
Advocacy News: May 2026
The Good News: CT Senator Chris Murphy has introduced a bill (bipartisan and bicameral) to increase funding for Agricultural Management Assistance to $30 million and to expand the eligible uses for these funds to include “soil health improvements, composting, implementing organic farming, and food safety certification in addition to existing authorized uses such as water management structure and soil erosion control.” Let’s thank Senator Murphy for introducing this bill!
The Bad News: The Farm Bill passed the House of Representatives on April 30, despite 320 food, farm, and conservation organizations, including CT NOFA, voicing our opposition to a bill that does not fix SNAP, does not support new and beginning farmers, and does not adequately support conservation programs or organic agriculture. Now it goes to the Senate and we need to urge both of Connecticut’s Senators to reject this Farm Bill.