Press Release

Great news for Californians today…

The Assembly Agriculture Committee unanimously passed Assembly Bill 38 by Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles), which is an effort to ensure every California child has access to healthy and nutritious food by creating the Office of Farm to Fork in the Department of Food & Agriculture.

The new office will be tasked with promoting access to healthy, California grown foods in underserved communities by bringing public health officials, agriculture industry leaders and educators together to make sure California’s children receive nutritious meals.

“Fruits and vegetables with the ‘California Grown’ label are known for their quality throughout the world, and Californians—especially kids—should have the proverbial first bite at the apple when it comes to the nutritious and healthy food grown in our state,” said Speaker Pérez. “Rural and urban communities throughout California do not have reliable access to quality, nutritious food that helps improve their health and quality of life, and this legislation will help to address this critical, if often overlooked, issue.”

AB 38 expands on the Speaker’s previous legislation, AB 581, which established the California Healthy Foods Financing Initiative, a program intended to eradicate  food deserts — large geographic areas with little to no access to affordable, quality, healthy foods — and increase access to healthy and nutritious foods.

Residents of “food deserts” have disproportionally higher incidences of diabetes, cancer, obesity, heart disease and premature death than people living in areas with access to health foods. Speaker Pérez’s efforts have received strong bipartisan support in the past, including today’s unanimous approval of AB 38.

The bill will next be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

For More Information Please Visit The Website of Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez: www.asmdc.org/speaker