Sponsors (3)
The bill expands farm-to-institution support—boosting local market access, student food education, tribal participation, and evidence-building—while limiting grant size/duration and adding eligibility and reporting rules that may constrain large projects and slow implementation.
Local farmers, beginning farmers, and fishers can access new institutional markets through funding for procurement, aggregation, processing, transport, and distribution projects.
Children and students in K-12 and higher education receive expanded hands-on agriculture, nutrition, and culturally relevant food education in eligible institutions.
Tribal communities (tribal-lands residents and sovereign entities) receive higher priority and may use certain Federal Tribal funds to meet matching requirements, lowering barriers to Tribal projects.
Farmers and institutions seeking large-scale, longer-term supply-chain investments may be underfunded because grants are capped at $500,000 and limited to three-year terms, which can limit capacity-building for larger projects.
Nonprofits, some schools, and existing grantees or activities could be excluded because the bill tightens eligible-entity definitions and restricts certain uses of funds (e.g., prohibiting grants solely for conferences).
Taxpayers and USDA staff could face higher administrative burden and slower grant disbursement due to new periodic reporting requirements and administrative rulemaking for waivers, adding costs and potential delays.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Revises the Farm to School grant program to broaden eligible institutions and activities, add procurement/distribution funding, permit research/evaluation, cap grants at $500K/3 years, and allow matching waivers.
Introduced November 6, 2025 by Peter Welch · Last progress November 6, 2025
Updates the federal farm-to-school grant program by clarifying who counts as eligible institutions and agricultural producers, expanding eligible activities (including gardens, procurement from local producers, distribution and processing), and broadening the Secretary's authorities to include grants, technical assistance, research, and evaluation. The bill also sets grant limits (maximum $500,000 and up to 3 years), requires diversity in award size/duration, allows waivers or modifications of matching requirements (including special rules for Tribal agencies to count certain federal benefits toward matching), and bars grants used solely to run conferences.