Today, May 17th, 2022, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02) signed on as a cosponsor of H.R. 7675, the Strengthening Agriculture and Food Supply Chain Act. This bipartisan bill, introduced by Reps. Angie Craig (MN-02) and Dusty Johnson (SD-00), would create a dedicated task force at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to evaluate the reliability of the American food supply chain and provide recommendations to Congress to prevent future supply chain issues.
“As I travel across the Second District, I am hearing story after story of Iowans paying more at the grocery store, businesses struggling to stock their shelves, and farmers facing higher input costs. Iowa families are also facing record-high inflation, further stressing their pocketbooks,” said Miller-Meeks. “We need to work to immediately fix the broken links in our broken supply chain. This bipartisan and commonsense bill will provide real answers for countless Americans and I am proud to support it.”
Background:
The Strengthening Agriculture and Food Supply Chain Act would create a task force at USDA that would be responsible for evaluating the stability and reliability of the agriculture and food system as well as identifying specific recommendations to improve the security, safety, and resilience of the supply chain. The task force would be required to submit a report detailing its work and recommendations to Congress no later than 270 days after the enactment of the bill.
Specifically, the Agricultural and Food System Supply Chain Resilience and Crisis Response Task Force would be responsible for:
- Evaluating the stability and reliability of the agriculture and food system supply chain by assessing:
- the strengths of the agriculture and food system supply chain;
- the weaknesses of the agriculture and food system supply chain;
- current and potential future critical bottlenecks in the agriculture and food system supply chain, including transportation bottlenecks in the distribution of agricultural inputs, processed and unprocessed food and food input products, and consumer-ready food products;
- workforce challenges and opportunities in the agriculture and food system supply chain; and
- Federal, State, and local laws and regulations that increase the stability and reliability of the agriculture and food system supply chain or decrease or otherwise negatively impact the stability and reliability of the agriculture and food system supply chain.
- Identifying specific recommendations to improve the security, safety, and resilience of the agriculture and food system supply chain, including recommendations that address:
- long-term strategies;
- industry best practices;
- risk-mitigation actions to prevent future bottlenecks and vulnerabilities at all levels of the agriculture and food system supply chain; and
- legislative and regulatory actions that would positively impact the security and resilience of the agriculture and food system supply chain.
- Submitting a report to Congress no later than 270 days after the enactment of the bill on the activities, findings, and recommendations of the Task Force.
Original source can be found here
