Editor’s Note: This is the second post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. The first post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole. This post provides a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on local and regional food systems. The third post will offer a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on the farm safety net, farms’ ability to access land and capital, and fair competition. The final post will cover conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research.  

In a moment where families and farmers are facing increased costs, The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA) takes modest steps to invest in local food supply chains while unfortunately neglecting to address the historically deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program included in 2025’s budget reconciliation bill (H.R. 1). Most notably, the bill would create a permanent – albeit unfunded – program that empowers states to develop their own community nutrition programs that purchase from small and mid-size farms and beginning and veteran farmers to distribute in food insecure communities. At other times, the bill underfunds programs, significantly jeopardizing their success. 

The following analysis is divided into sections addressing local and regional market access and development, supply chain infrastructure and support, and food access:

• Market Access and Development
• Supply Chain Infrastructure and Support
• Food Access

Local Food: Market Access and Development

In 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) unexpectedly terminated two programs that sought to connect producers to new markets via business technical assistance and market access. The March termination came at a time when many farmers had already purchased supplies or expanded operations in anticipation of future sales. Since then, there has been notable support in the House and Senate for a new, permanent program that would invest in reliable state and domestic markets. 

Local Farmers Feeding our Communities

The FFNSA creates a new program, the Local Farmers Feeding our Communities Program, which directs USDA to enter into cooperative agreements with state agencies and Tribal governments to provide them with funding to purchase and distribute local food to communities in need (Section 4306). Nestled in the nutrition title, it is clear that the program would readily provide healthy foods to food insecure communities. However, the primary focus of the program is to expand economic opportunities for small- and mid-sized farms, beginning and veteran farmers, while strengthening regional food networks. In addition to funding for direct food purchases, the new program includes:

• An emphasis on farm-fresh local products, requiring all food purchases to be minimally processed foods; 
• A requirement for at least 25% of the total annual value of products purchased under these agreements to come from small, midsize, beginning, or veteran producers; 
• Funding for administration and technical support that helps producers obtain food safety training and certification; 
• An authorization of appropriations for $200 million annually; 
• A directive that 10% of total funding be allocated first to Tribal nations, with each state then receiving 1% of funds, and all remaining funding to be allocated utilizing the Emergency Food Assistance state allocation formula. 

The inclusion of the Farmers Feeding our Communities Program is an instance of Congress responding to farmers and communities nationwide, celebrating the success of the previous Local Food Purchase Assistance Program while also making pragmatic improvements, such as directing technical assistance for food safety. However, without mandatory funding, the program would not be able to provide reliable market access, limiting program effectiveness and making farmers hesitant to participate. 

Food Safety Outreach Program

Investments in food safety education and equipment or training are essential to meeting ever-evolving market and regulatory food safety requirements. Without sufficient investments, these food safety requirements can prevent many smaller-scale producers from entering new markets. The FFNSA meets the bare minimum of reauthorizing some of the programs that provide these investments – such as the Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP). FSOP, which funds education on a variety of food safety topics, includes an intentional focus on reaching underserved producer communities. However, FFNSA misses an opportunity to increase funding levels for FSOP, a crucial misstep, especially given the array of food safety regulations increasingly impacting smaller producers. It also makes the misstep of removing a community outreach and grant feedback component that may negatively impact program structure in the future (Sec. 7301).

Local Agriculture Market Program 

The farm bill has a longstanding history of supporting local market development through programs such as the Local Agriculture Market Program.  Yet, FFNSA fails to fully respond to the growing program demand and its proven track record in generating new business revenue and jobs. FFNSA offers program reforms that codify a simplified, turnkey application process, which will support essential activities such as farmers’ market manager time, marketing activities, and special purpose equipment. Unfortunately, it does not offer an increase in appropriations or mandatory funding levels. The combined effect of the changes may generate more demand than the program can support (Section 10102). 

Federal Procurement Reform 

Without a Child Nutrition Reauthorization anywhere on the horizon, the farm bill is the primary opportunity to update federal food procurement policies that respond to the needs of farmers, businesses, school nutrition stakeholders, and communities. FFNSA directs USDA to examine USDA’s food purchasing practices to understand 1) barriers for farmers and businesses to sell nontraditional, culturally relevant, or local and regional products directly to USDA, and 2) the quality of foods being purchased for USDA programs. This assessment would also make administrative, regulatory, and legislative recommendations to address barriers. This is a small but necessary step in updating long term commodity purchasing practices (Section 10106). 

Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program

Meat and poultry processing is a closely regulated industry. Yet, for decades, geographic and funding limitations have frequently prevented Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) personnel from providing food safety education before regulation. These same limitations have also made it challenging for FSIS to cost-effectively regulate smaller processors in many states. As a result, Congress created the Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program (CIS) in the Food Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill) to enable products processed at state-inspected plants to be sold interstate if the state has a Meat and Poultry Inspection program equivalent to the federal inspection program.

CIS has expanded markets and opportunities and encouraged the creation of new products in the small plants it serves. Over time, however, it has become evident that the CIS program requires an expansion of scope and funding in order to serve more small and very small meat processors. The bipartisan Strengthening Local Processing Act (SLPA, H.R. 945) includes changes to the federal and state regulatory authorities’ cost-share model, which could alter the cost-benefit analysis for states that have their own meat and poultry inspection programs, ultimately making for more effective regulation of small and very small meat processors. Those plants will then be able to work more effectively with small and diversified farms that are an essential component of a sustainable and equitable food system. 

Unfortunately, the FFNSA declines to make any changes to the CIS program structure, instead promoting outreach about the program and requiring a report on that outreach each year (Sec 12113). While the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) supports more effective promotion of the CIS program, the failure to include many of the necessary structural and funding improvements means that the FFNSA misses a critical opportunity to expand markets for smaller processors, increase competition in the industry, and help bring more nutritious, locally, and often sustainably raised animal products to market. The FFNSA requires FSIS to provide more publicly available food safety resources designed for small and very small meat processors, including additional widely available validation studies, which small processors can use to support scale-appropriate food safety control techniques. (Section 12112). 

Business Technical Assistance 

Successful local market development programs have included temporary investments in value-chain coordination and business technical assistance that connect producers to scale appropriate market opportunities. These hands-on efforts can provide regionalized, specific support that strengthens local food networks. Two of USDA’s most notable initiatives to support these activities are the Regional Food Business Centers and the Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity Technical Assistance program. Unfortunately, the FFNSA does not authorize either program. It does, however, meet the bare minimum of reauthorizing a number of longstanding rural business development programs, such as the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP), Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA), Rural Business Development Grants, and Rural Cooperative Development Grants. Additional program changes to RMAP are noted in the following section. 

Local Food: Supply Chain and Infrastructure Support

USDA’s previous transformative food system initiative focused on improvements across the supply chain, with investments in infrastructure, workforce development, value-chain coordination, and business technical assistance. The FFNSA offers a few new options for infrastructure investments, but does not adequately respond to the needs of rural communities for specialized food workforce training and technical assistance for scaling businesses. Disproportionate investment along the supply chain can lead to supply without adequate markets for producers, or potentially new infrastructure for businesses without sufficient business planning to strategically scale. 

Infrastructure

The FFNSA attempts to sustain some of the meat processing expansion programs created by ARPA, for example, through a “new, mobile, and expanded meat processing and rendering grants” program (Section 6304). This section bears some but not enough resemblance to the original programs (MPPEP, Local MCap, MPIRG) that were developed, in part, based on the proposals in SLPA. 

At only $3 million in authorized appropriations funding, the FFNSA’s Section 6304 grants are insufficiently funded relative to the demand across the US. Furthermore, the bill expands eligible applicants to include land grant universities, state departments of agriculture, and other organizations with existing capacities well beyond the small and very small meat processors for whom this program was intended. Instead of limiting these grants to small and very small processors, the FFNSA only includes it as a priority that the funding goes to small and very small processors. This, combined with the lack of a ‘socially disadvantaged’ priority, means that the FFNSA-created grant program runs the risk of funneling money to processors that already have access to other financial instruments to expand capacity. This fails to meaningfully address the processing bottleneck that smaller-scale producers nationwide experience. 

The FFNSA expands upon the existing business and industry guaranteed loan program by setting aside a portion of its annual funding for a permanent food supply chain guaranteed loan that seeks to support food supply chain capacity by financing projects focused on aggregation, processing, distribution, and manufacturing. Additionally, it caps the guarantee fee institutions pay to USDA to 3%, which has been cited as a barrier for borrowers among a number of lenders. However, there is little specificity of program goals or parameters for business scale or production type. This financial product is unlikely to support emerging food enterprises or small and mid-scale enterprises participating exclusively in regional food supply chains due to the rigorous underwriting standards associated with USDA guaranteed loans (Section 6304, 6412). 

The Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program supports business enterprise development in rural communities by offering affordable loans and relevant ancillary business technical assistance. RMAP is long overdue for program updates to increase the allowable loan sizes and relax restrictions on building renovations, a critical need in many rural spaces. The FFNSA would increase the loan limit to $75,000 and up to 50% of that loan can support costs associated with renovation, construction or other real estate improvement (Section 6422). 

Finally, the bill codifies recent LAMP program updates by allowing the purchase of necessary special purpose equipment (Section 10102).

Workforce Development

Small and very small processors – for whom jobs tend to be more cross functional than in their larger industry competitors – have struggled to recruit and maintain the highly skilled workforce they need. More funding and programs specifically created to support the unique needs of small and very small meat workforce development are important to increase growth in the sector.

Unfortunately, the FFNSA does not offer any new funding or new programs to meet the much needed investment in this sector. The bill does amend the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) to include meat processing workforce development as an area of research. The bill also authorizes the creation of new community college grants oriented towards the development of a broader highly skilled agricultural workforce. While this may include meat processing training, it does not do so explicitly (Section 7123, 7503). 

Local Food: Access

While the Local Farmers Feeding our Communities Program would increase the circulation of farm-fresh foods in American communities, FFNSA does very little to otherwise support access to and affordability of nutritious foods for food insecure families. 

A number of USDA programs incentivize families to use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits (SNAP) to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables in local food settings by providing matching cash benefits, generating a win for families and farmers. These programs – namely the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) and the Gus Schumaker Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) – receive bipartisan support. FFNSA makes common sense reforms to include popular items such as herbs, maple syrup, and tree nuts in the eligible foods for SFMNP (Section 4201). It also updates award criteria for GusNIP grantees by allowing the Secretary to waive the match requirement for applicants from persistent poverty counties and prioritize projects that increase year-round availability for fruits and vegetables (Section 4303). While NSAC is pleased to see efforts to reduce match requirements, the new prioritization stands to weaken the existing priority for direct-marketing settings, leading to potential shifts of spending away from American farmers. Overall, FFNSA does not succeed in meeting the growing needs of food insecure communities with no additional funding to either program in addition to a failure to restore the cuts to SNAP that were initiated by H.R. 1 in 2025. 

Some changes in the FFNSA likely stand to increase local food access in vulnerable communities by increasing the connectivity between farmers and their communities (Section 10003). The bill offers a number of reforms to the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production that are responsive to the growth of a new office since its initial implementation in 2020. Those changes include: 

• Expanding the responsibilities and improving the services of the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) to better support the business and conservation needs of urban and innovative producers; 
• Renewing the Federal Advisory Committee until 2031; 
• Permanently authorizing the FSA Urban County Committees; 
• Directing USDA to increase outreach and technical assistance to producers through cooperative agreements with community experts; 
• Ensuring UAIP grants have broader reach to producers by allowing for awards to farmer cooperatives and subawards to individual farmers.  

Yet, due to the no-cost nature of the bill, the proposed changes will generate increased demand without any increase or guarantee of funding. OUAIP has consistently been underfunded or forgotten in Appropriations Cycles. Therefore, these program improvements stand to be delayed without adequate funding.