Iowa Food System Coalition members advocated for bills that would support local food farmers, purchasers and distributors in Iowa, at the Iowa Capitol on Jan. 23, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Iowa Food System Coalition members and supporters served fresh pie and chatted with lawmakers in the Iowa Capitol Rotunda Thursday as part of a push on their message that “food farms deserve a bigger slice of the pie.”
The coalition, and associated groups like Iowa Farmers Union and Center for Rural Affairs, advocated for bills that would expand the Double Up Food Bucks program, rural grocery store improvements and make the Choose Iowa local purchasing program a permanent part of the state’s budget.
Tommy Hexter, Iowa Farmers Union policy director, said the Choose Iowa program, which is under the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, made significant progress last year with the start of a pilot program that funded the purchase of local products for food banks and schools.
“The Choose Iowa program – that is the engine for Iowa grown and Iowa produced products in the state,” Hexter said. “The Choose Iowa program is really what we want to put most of our energy towards to see that program grow.”
Roger Van Donselaar grows 15 acres of produce in Grinnell and sells them almost entirely on site through his Prairie Produce business.
Van Donselaar said he has also benefitted from the Choose Iowa purchasing program and sold some of his produce to his local food bank.
Van Donselaar said the purchases from the Choose Iowa Program don’t account for a whole lot of his total sales at Prairie Produce in Grinnell, but it allows him to support his community food bank without going broke.
Plus, he said he gets feedback from the food bank organizer who tells him things like “the tomatoes flew off the shelves.
“So you know you’re doing some good,” Van Donselaar said. “The reason I’m involved here is because of (the coalition’s) ability to get food to people.”
Double Up Food Bucks
Coalition advocates at the Capitol said they were also excited about progress made on a bill that would expand the Double Up Food Bucks program, which also widens the market for produce farmers in Iowa.
The Double Up Food Bucks program allows Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients to double their dollars on produce both in grocery stores and at farmers markets.
Advocates say it’s great for shoppers who get greater purchasing power, and for farmers who benefit from their purchases.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
The Double Up program in Iowa is organized by the Healthiest State Initiative and currently allows Iowa SNAP recipients to get a dollar-for-dollar match up to $15 per day on purchases of fruits and vegetables.
A Senate subcommittee voted to advance Senate Study Bill 1012 Wednesday which would allocate a $1 million grant to Healthiest State Initiative to expand its Double Up program.
The bill was introduced by Sen. Mike Klimesh, a Republican from Spillville.
Rural grocery and local produce processing
Coalition members also noted House File 59, which would create a grocer reinvestment program and a local produce processing grant program with a $2 million fund for the two programs this year and next.
Cynthia Farmer, senior policy associate for Center for Rural Affairs, said the funding would help to ensure healthy food access in rural communities.
“If you want people to move back to those rural communities, you need food access,” Farmer said. “You need all the things that folks look at for the vitality of a local community, and we think that the grocery store is one of the backbone pieces of having folks move back to a town.”
Many of the grocery stores in rural Iowa are aging, both in terms of ownership and the buildings themselves, according to Farmer. This funding could help grocery stores with anything from a new roof, to an online ordering system for residents, or new refrigeration systems.
The other half of the bill would help to fund produce processing equipment in shared spaces. For example, several farmers could benefit from a big piece of equipment, purchased with the help of the grant, in a shared kitchen that would allow them to wash and package produce or otherwise process some of their harvest.
Farmer said the bill also requires a match from the receiving farmers or grocers, which she said means they “have some skin in the game.”
“It makes sure that that investment is staying in that community,” Farmer said.
A subcommittee met to discuss the bill Thursday and decided to push it forward.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.