Federal agencies directly bought more than $9 billion worth of food last year, and some lawmakers backed by leading environmental groups want to see that spending shifted to “values-aligned” purchasing that accounts for societal and environmental impacts.
The Enabling Farmer, Food worker, Environmental, and Climate Targets through Innovative, Values-aligned, and Equitable (EFFECTIVE) Food Procurement Act introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., directs USDA to use its existing food purchasing programs to buy a variety of foods that support workers, small and midsize farmers and mitigate climate change.
“USDA has an opportunity to use its sizable purchasing power to address our agriculture sector’s compounding crisis of agri-business consolidation, climate change, and worker mistreatment.," Markey said in a press release.
USDA's "purchasing power can be – should be – directed to support supply chains that keep our air and water clean, our climate stable, our workers protected, our small and regional farmers viable, and our families fed," said Adams, a senior member of the House Ag Committee.
Among other things, the bill would require USDA to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the food it purchases. USDA also would be required to evaluate bids on such factors as climate impact and worker well-being.
The bill would establish a $25 million pilot program to shift USDA’s purchasing policies to not only evaluate bids on cost, but also on climate mitigation, worker well-being, resilient supply chains and equity. It also would create new transparency in USDA by requiring reporting of the procurement process.
If enacted it would also provide grants and technical assistance to support small-scale and underserved producers and businesses to access USDA’s procurement.
The bill gives advocates a proposal to rally around as Congress continues work on a new farm bill in 2024. But House Republicans have been trying to roll back existing Biden administration efforts to factor climate impacts into government decisions and to require corporate disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions. Republicans argue the efforts will impose unnecessary costs on the economy.
Cities such as Denver, Austin, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York City and others are already using food procurement strategies that advance their own priorities related to health, equity, climate and enhancing local economies.
USDA and the Department of Defense account for 90% of direct federal food purchases, including commodity foods for school districts, food banks, low-income seniors, foreign aid and Indian reservations.
Chloe Waterman, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth, said during a recent webinar that in order to capitalize on the multiple benefits of climate-friendly food purchase the federal government first needs to create its own baseline analysis of food purchasing.
“We recommend that it pursue a plant-forward through purchasing strategy to achieve those reductions," she said.
One of the first priorities of the Federal Good Food Purchasing Coalition, which includes major environmental groups and food policy advocates, is to establish comprehensive accounting of the scale and composition of federal food purchasing and an analysis of its social and environmental effects.
Waterman and Scott Richardson, co-founder and partner of Northbound Ventures, evaluated the impact of hypothetically replacing 50% of beef purchasing with plant-based proteins as well as replacing 25% of the 20 most common conventionally grown produce with organic counterparts to look at pesticide usage reductions.
Richardson stated shifts to more” plant-forward options” would provide “modest cost savings” of 2-3% lower.
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Although the Biden administration has taken actions to address consolidation, Waterman said, “USDA’s own food purchasing reflects and contributes to the concentration in the commercial market that it’s saying it wants to address.”
The Federal Good Food Purchasing Coalition says USDA's top 25 vendors – or 8% of total vendors – collectively received nearly half of total spending last fiscal year. Cargill accounted for 6% of all USDA food purchases, and Tyson Foods accounted for 43% of all USDA poultry purchases.
“Most of the USDA’s food procurement is not aligned with Biden administration priorities and is instead upholding the status quo food system,” said Jessi Silverman, senior policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Sarah Little, spokesperson for the North American Meat Institute said this report does not take into account that Tyson and Cargill have both made SBTI commitments to reduce GHG emissions and are leading the industry in other environmental stewardship efforts. "They both invest in their employees with generous benefits and good wages. And most important for those who are food insecure and for the taxpayer, they produce safe, affordable and nutritious food very efficiently," Little told Agri-Pulse.
“The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act would bring the federal government meaningfully closer to its goals of reducing the carbon footprint of procurement, creating fair and equitable markets for producers and protecting workers’ rights.”
Waterman said to advance values-aligned food procurement more broadly, the coalition is recommending that the administration update the food service guidelines for federal facilities to incorporate sustainability, health equity and other considerations and require implementation across the federal government.
Short of updating procurement laws, agencies can still incorporate values-aligned purchasing practices into their bid solicitations and contracts, she said. Waterman suggested transitioning to a more diverse range of suppliers over time.
“Shifting in purchasing to align with values is a win-win and provides healthier and more sustainably-sourced food to the millions of people relying on federal food service and can have positive ripple effects throughout the food system benefiting workers, local economies, farmers, environment and animals,” Waterman said.
Although the White House made suggestions on increasing values-aligned food procurement as part of the nutrition and hunger summit in 2022, it has not followed through on implementation.
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