OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS
Legislative Office Building, Room 5200
Hartford, CT 06106 (860) 240-0200
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa
sHB-6385
AN ACT CONCERNING ENHANCEMENTS TO CERTAIN
AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS.
Primary Analyst: MR 3/24/21
Contributing Analyst(s): EMG, PR
OFA Fiscal Note
State Impact:
Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 22 $ FY 23 $
Department of Agriculture GF - Cost 125,832 125,832
Resources of the General Fund GF - Revenue
Gain
Potential
Minimal
Potential
Minimal
Note: GF=General Fund
Municipal Impact: None
Explanation
This bill makes changes to various agricultural laws and programs.
Section 3 alters labeling verbiage on farm products marketed under
the “CT-Grown” program by the Department of Agriculture (DoAg).
Violations of the new labeling requirements under the bill receive a
warning for the first violation and a $100 fine for subsequent
violations. This may result in a minimal revenue gain to the General
Fund, to the extent violations occur and are enforced by DoAg.
Section 4 revises the penalties for violating the state’s produce
safety laws and applies them to violations of the federal Food Safety
Modernization Act’s (FSMA) produce safety rule. Currently, the FSMA
law sets a range of fines as penalties (from $25 to $50 for a first offense
and from $100 to $200 for subsequent offenses). Instead, the bill sets
fines: $50 for the first offense and $200 for a subsequent offense. This
is not anticipated to have a fiscal impact, as total revenue associated
with these fines is minimal. 2021HB-06385-R000134-FN.DOCX Page 2 of 2
Section 5 of the bill reduces the penalty for violating Connecticut’s
seed law (labeling, sales, and record keeping requirements). Currently,
the penalty is a class D misdemeanor with a fine of $100 for a first
offense and $200 for a subsequent offense. The bill removes the class D
misdemeanor penalty, leaving the specified monetary fines in place.
This has no fiscal impact as there have been no violations under the
current statute for the past five years.
Section 6 requires the farmers’ market WIC and senior nutrition
program vouchers, also administered by DoAg, to have a value of at
least $20. Currently, eligible program participants receive $15 and $18
in vouchers, respectively. Increasing the dollar amount of the WIC
and senior nutrition vouchers to $21 would result in annual costs to
DoAg of $125,832.
1
Section 10 expands the purposes of DoAg’s farm viability matching
grant program to include “the development of urban and
nontraditional farming practices.” This has no fiscal impact to the
General Fund, but it may cause reserves within the nonlapsing account
of the Community Investment Act to be expended faster than they
otherwise would have been. The current balance in this account is
$717,592, and in FY 20 the account expended was $549,937.
Sections 11 - 13 eliminate the Connecticut Marketing Authority
within DoAg. This has no fiscal impact as the Hartford Regional
Market was transferred to the Capital Region Development Authority
in January 2019 (FY 20) under PA 18-154.
Other sections and provisions of the bill make various changes that
have no fiscal impact.
1
This estimate assumes the dollar amount of the vouchers is increased to $21 to be
consistent with the program's current practice of using vouchers in multiples of $3.