S3471-119

In Committee

EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act

119th Congress Introduced Dec 15, 2025

Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.

Summary

What This Bill Does

This bill directs USDA food procurement to favor equitable, labor-supporting, and climate-resilient food criteria, reserves contracting opportunities for smaller and disadvantaged producers, and creates a best-value pilot, technical assistance, and grant support for those vendors.

Who Benefits and How

Beginning, veteran, socially disadvantaged, and smaller farmers, ranchers, fishers, and mission-aligned food entities would gain better access to USDA purchasing, grants, and technical assistance. Food-program users could also see broader sourcing and diet-accommodation options.

Who Bears the Burden and How

USDA would have to redesign procurement criteria, track supply-chain and emissions information, run new reporting and grant programs, and shift purchasing away from suppliers that do not meet the bill's preferred standards.

Key Provisions

  • Defines covered producers and covered entities for preferential procurement treatment.
  • Requires USDA food purchasing to include equity, resilience, worker, and climate criteria and to publish recurring reports and targets.
  • Sets aside annual procurement funds for covered producers and covered entities.
  • Creates a best-value procurement pilot, technical assistance, and competitive grants to help eligible producers qualify as USDA vendors.

Evidence Chain:

This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers.

At a Glance

What This Bill Does

This bill directs USDA food procurement to favor equitable, labor-supporting, and climate-resilient food criteria, reserves contracting opportunities for smaller and disadvantaged producers, and creates a best-value pilot, technical assistance, and grant support for those vendors.

Key Policy Areas

Agriculture, Labor, Environment

Primary Purpose

This bill directs USDA food procurement to favor equitable, labor-supporting, and climate-resilient food criteria, reserves contracting opportunities for smaller and disadvantaged producers, and creates a best-value pilot, technical assistance, and grant support for those vendors.

Policy Domains

Agriculture Labor Environment

Main Provisions

Identified Gains
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
  • Covered producers and covered entities seeking USDA contracts
  • School food authorities and food banks using USDA commodity programs
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: is

Contextual inference, no direct clause citation

Identified Costs
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
  • USDA procurement administrators
  • Incumbent suppliers that do not satisfy the new preferred criteria
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: is

Contextual inference, no direct clause citation

Legislative Progress

In Committee
Introduced Committee Passed
Jan 14, 2026

Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Hearings held.

Dec 15, 2025

Mr. Markey (for himself, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Welch, …

Dec 15, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, …

Dec 15, 2025

Introduced in Senate

Stakeholder Effects

cui bono?

How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.

Agriculture
2 mentions across 2 clauses
+2 positive

Covered producers and covered entities that meet the preferred sourcing criteria, Grant recipients needing food safety upgrades, audits, insurance, or food safety plans

Government
2 mentions across 2 clauses
-2 negative

USDA procurement administrators and reporting staff, USDA staff running the pilot, technical assistance, and grant reporting requirements

Food & Beverage
1 mention across 1 clause
-1 negative

Incumbent food suppliers that do not meet the preferred sourcing and labor criteria

4/6
sections analyzed
Full impact breakdown

Bill Structure & Actor Mappings

Who is "The Secretary" in each section?

Domains
Agriculture Labor Environment
Actor Mappings
"the_secretary"
→ Secretary of Agriculture

We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.

Learn more about our methodology