Report Title:

Farmers' Market Nutrition Program

Description:

Appropriates $210,000 matching funds to implement a farmers’ market nutrition program in Hawaii under the guidelines established by the United States Department of Agriculture.

 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

1938

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

Relating to the farmers' market nutrition program.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that throughout Hawaii, there is a need to provide locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables to women, infants, and children. The average family budget for a family of four in Hawaii is 35.1 per cent higher than the corresponding urban average on the mainland United States. The difference in food costs between the mainland and Hawaii is 50.1 per cent. Participation of eligible women, infants, and children in Hawaii’s Women, Infants and Children program increased by thirty per cent to thirty-five thousand at the end of fiscal year 1999.

The program will include nutrition education, referral to proper agencies, and participation in local farmers’ markets to promote healthy eating habits and improve nutrition. The goal is to promote five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day. The benefits and goals include reduction of hypertension disease which is re1ated to one-third of all deaths in the United States, reduction of pregnant women who have diabetes from 5.7 per cent in Hawaii to the national average of 5.3 per cent, reduction of tooth decay from 13.6 per cent to five per cent in children under the age five in Hawaii, and reduction of Hawaii households that experience food security issues which have increased from seven per cent in 1995 to thirteen per cent in 1999. In Hawaii, only twenty six per cent of children ages two to nineteen years old eat the recommended five or more servings per day and twenty per cent of women enrolled in the department of health’s women, infants, and children program eat the recommended servings.

A state plan, outlining the farmers’ market operation will be submitted by Hawaii’s women, infants, and children program to the United States Department of Agriculture by November 15, 2002. The plan would be to implement a farmers' market starting June 1, 2003, to August 31, 2003.

SECTION 2. The department of health shall submit a report to the legislature no more than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular sessions of the 2003 and 2004 regular sessions on the progress and findings of the following programs:

(1) Farmers’ market nutrition program that will meet the needs of Hawaii’s population; and

(2) A service delivery model and report of a pilot project including the operation procedure and service provided.

SECTION 3. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii, the sum of $210,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2002-2003, to establish the Hawaii farmers’ market nutrition program.

The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of health for the purpose of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2002.

INTRODUCED BY:

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