wa-law.org > bill > 2025-26 > HB 2238 > Substitute Bill

HB 2238 - Statewide food security

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Section 1

  1. The legislature intends to provide for the development of a strategy for statewide food security in order to end hunger, reduce diet-related health disparities, and increase agricultural viability and supply chain resilience.

  2. This section expires July 1, 2028.

Section 2

  1. The director of agriculture shall exercise all the powers and perform all the duties relating to the development of markets, for agricultural products, state and federal cooperative marketing programs, land utilization for agricultural purposes, water resources, transportation, and farm labor as such matters relate to the production, distribution, and sale of agricultural commodities including private sector cultured aquatic products as defined in RCW 15.85.020.

  2. The director of agriculture shall exercise all the powers and perform all duties necessary to monitor food system performance and coordinate statewide food security, including working collaboratively with state, local, and federal agencies; tribes; nonprofit organizations; research institutions; and industry experts with roles and responsibilities pertaining to agricultural resilience and food access. When evaluating food system performance, the director shall consider metrics that, at a minimum, relate to monitoring and quantifying regulatory costs imposed by the state of Washington on fuel, packaging, and labor. Beginning June 30, 2030, the department shall report to the legislature at least once every four years, in compliance with RCW 43.01.036, on the competitiveness of Washington's agricultural regulatory landscape relative to peer state competitors for the commodity types prevalent in Washington's in-state agricultural economy.

Section 3

  1. The department shall develop a strategy to enhance statewide food security by recommending measures the legislature could take to make food more affordable, and related measures that have the potential to reduce the number of Washingtonians in need of food assistance, in order to end hunger, reduce health disparities, and increase agricultural viability and supply chain resilience.

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    1. The department shall convene the office of the superintendent of public instruction, the department of health, the department of social and health services, the state conservation commission, the office of farmland preservation, the department of ecology, the University of Washington, Washington State University, members of the food policy forum, and nonprofit hunger relief organizations to develop the strategy. The department must also consult with nonprofit, research, public sector, and private sector experts on agricultural resilience and food access, individuals who have direct lived experience in a food insecure household with at least one member from the BIPOC community, and small farmers in Washington who are members of the BIPOC community.

    2. The department shall notify and engage federally recognized tribes regularly throughout the development of the strategy.

  3. At a minimum, the strategy must:

    1. Define statewide food security in terms of food access, agricultural viability, and supply chain resilience;

    2. Develop metrics and a methodology to monitor food system performance across the three key indicator areas: Agricultural viability, supply chain resilience, and food access. The monitoring system must include a framework for maintaining annually updated data for all state and federal investments across Washington's hunger safety net, including utilization rates and available demographic data. Agricultural viability performance metrics must include, but not be limited to, tracking the cost of fuel and labor using data available to state agencies or supplied from voluntary industry surveys, and must include a calculation of the incremental cost to these key agricultural inputs from Washington state-specific laws and regulations;

    3. Build agricultural viability and supply chain resilience by:

      1. Identifying opportunities to address state policy and regulatory barriers to food production and supply chain coordination;

      2. Establishing a communication network and clarity of roles across Washington's food system that support effective response during disaster, with prioritized, coordinated outreach to impacted producers and consumers; and

      3. Taking a proproducer, antihunger systems approach to coordinate agency actions and awareness across Washington's food system; and

    4. Build long-term food security by:

      1. Supporting nutrition education and food system literacy for all;

      2. Ensuring coordinated strategies for assessing, communicating, and addressing gaps in food access due to changes in supply or demand of hunger safety net;

      3. Enhancing nutrition and food security research to support measurable reduction in diet-related health disparities; and

      4. Identifying and addressing the root cause of hunger in Washington.

  4. The department shall provide the statewide food security strategy, in conformance with RCW 43.01.036, to the appropriate committees of the legislature by December 1, 2027.

  5. For the purposes of this section, "department" means the department of agriculture.

  6. This section expires July 1, 2028.

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