For decades, low-income urban and rural communities have suffered from a lack of access to healthy, fresh food. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that this is a reality for around 1.7 million California residents. The results of this lack of access are grim, nutritionally and economically.

AB 581 would create a California Healthy Food Financing Initiative (CHFFI) that will work to leverage funding from multiple sources and expand much-needed access to healthy food in underserved California communities. Specifically, it would:

1) establish a California Healthy Food Financing Initiative (CHFFI) Fund in the State Treasury;

2) create a CHFFI Council that would include representatives of multiple relevant state departments who will work to expand healthy food access in underserved communities and eliminate food deserts; and

3) require the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to make recommendations needed to promote healthy food access.

A state CHFFI could collaborate with other public, private, and philanthropic entities to provide critical one-time loan and grant financing to develop long-term, sustainable businesses. This move would attract grocery stores, food cooperatives, farmers’ markets, and other fresh food retailers to underserved areas, as well as renovate and expand corner, convenience, and grocery stores/markets so they can provide the healthy foods that communities want and need. These new or expanded stores would create jobs and improve the health of countless urban and rural communities across the state.

Please ask Governor Brown to sign AB 581.