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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2019 - 2020
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | March 6, 2019 03:48 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Judith L. Schwank and Sen. Vincent J. Hughes, Sen. Art Haywood |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Procurement changes to encourage locally sourced food |
| In the near future, we plan to reintroduce Senate Bill 1075 which amends Title 62 to promote the use of locally sourced food in the procurement process. One in every seven jobs in the Commonwealth are related to agriculture. The agriculture industry provides $136 billion in total economic impact to the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania is home to more than 58,000 farms and approximately 7.7 million acres of the commonwealth are devoted to agricultural production. According to the Department of Agriculture, 93% of Pennsylvanians want to purchase locally produced items. Our legislation would allow a deviance from the lowest bidder requirement in the procurement process for a qualified bidder for the purchase of food or food products that agrees to use locally sourced food. The cost of the bid cannot exceed more than 10% of the cost of the lowest bidder. Please join us in cosponsoring this legislation to help Pennsylvania farms. |
Introduced as SB169