Missouri Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act, Ballot Language

MISSOURI FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT

                       Scarcity Is a Policy Choice

Filed with the Missouri Secretary of State Prepared for the Office of the Attorney General, State of Missouri

Signature Requirement: 106,384 valid signatures (Five percent of the total votes cast for Governor at the November 2024 general election, collected in at least six (6) of Missouri's eight (8) congressional districts, as required by Article III, Section 50 of the Missouri Constitution)

BALLOT TITLE

SHALL THE STATE OF MISSOURI ESTABLISH THE MISSOURI FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT, AND, IN CONNECTION THEREWITH:

    (1) CREATING A MISSOURI FOOD ASSURANCE PROGRAM OPERATED BY THE
    DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE TO SELL GROCERY PRODUCTS AT AT-COST
    PRICING TO ALL MISSOURI RESIDENTS THROUGH STATE-OPERATED FOOD
    ASSURANCE CENTERS, WITH NOT FEWER THAN SIX PILOT CENTERS WITHIN
    TWO YEARS AND TWENTY-FOUR CENTERS STATEWIDE WITHIN FIVE YEARS,
    MODELED ON THE UNITED STATES MILITARY COMMISSARY OPERATED AT
    COST UNDER FEDERAL STATUTE SINCE 1867;

    (2) CREATING A MISSOURI ESSENTIAL GOODS PROGRAM THROUGH THE
    DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TO PRODUCE AND DISTRIBUTE
    CLOTHING, HOUSEHOLD SUPPLIES, HYGIENE PRODUCTS, AND OTHER
    ESSENTIAL GOODS AT BELOW-RETAIL PRICING THROUGH MISSOURI
    MANUFACTURING CONTRACTS;

    (3) APPROPRIATING SIXTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ($65,000,000) FROM
    THE GENERAL REVENUE FUND, REPRESENTING APPROXIMATELY FOUR-TENTHS
    OF ONE PERCENT OF THE STATE'S APPROXIMATELY $15.4 BILLION
    GENERAL REVENUE BUDGET?

Be it enacted by the people of the state of Missouri:

SUBMISSION CLAUSE

    [ ] YES / FOR THE MEASURE

    [ ] NO / AGAINST THE MEASURE

BALLOT TEXT

This measure adds Sections 262.900 through 262.935 and Sections 620.3000 through 620.3025 to the Revised Statutes of Missouri, creating two state programs.

THE MISSOURI FOOD ASSURANCE PROGRAM

    - Operated by the Department of Agriculture, establishing
      state-operated food assurance centers where all Missouri
      residents may purchase the full range of grocery products at
      at-cost pricing (production cost plus a facility surcharge not
      exceeding 5%);

    - Not fewer than six pilot centers within two years: two in the
      St. Louis metropolitan area (with at least one north of Delmar
      Boulevard or in a designated food desert), two in the Kansas
      City metropolitan area (with at least one east of Troost
      Avenue or in a designated food desert), one in Springfield,
      and one in the Bootheel region;

    - Expansion to twenty-four statewide centers within five years,
      with at least one center per congressional district;

    - Missouri-first procurement: 50% Missouri-sourced within three
      years, increasing to 65% within five years.

THE MISSOURI ESSENTIAL GOODS PROGRAM

    - Operated by the Department of Economic Development,
      distributing clothing, household supplies, hygiene products,
      tools, educational materials, and other essential goods at
      below-retail pricing through guaranteed-purchase contracts
      with Missouri manufacturers and direct procurement.

EVIDENTIARY BASIS: The USDA ERS Food Dollar Series establishes the farm share of the food dollar at 24.3 cents, with 75.7 cents in markup. The United States military commissary system has operated at-cost food distribution under 10 U.S.C. Section 2484 since 1867. Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base both operate commissaries in rural Missouri counties with above-average food insecurity. Missouri's agricultural output of $14.7 billion in market value of products sold exceeds its population's food requirements. Approximately 951,000 Missourians (15.4%) experience food insecurity. The state distributed approximately $1.51 billion in SNAP benefits in FY2024 through commercial retailers.

PUBLIC HEALTH RATIONALE: The Act's legislative findings document, as the closing argument for the program, why food insecurity and subordinate social position carry measurable physiological cost. The Whitehall Studies (Marmot) found the lowest civil-service grade experienced three times the mortality of the highest grade. Primate research (Sapolsky, Shively) and Nobel Prize-winning telomere research (Blackburn) converge on the same mechanism. In St. Louis, ZIP code 63105 and ZIP code 63106, fewer than ten miles apart along the Delmar Boulevard corridor, show an eighteen-year life expectancy difference. This evidence establishes why the program reaches beyond bare material survival. It does not create a separate health program.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

The Act appropriates $65,000,000 from the general revenue fund ($50,000,000 for the food assurance program; $15,000,000 for the essential goods program), representing approximately four-tenths of one percent of the $15.4 billion general revenue budget. The Act includes a severability clause and standard effective-date provisions.

PROPONENT STATEMENT

Missouri contains the mean center of the United States population, placed by the 2020 Census in Wright County. The Gateway Arch commemorates the launching point of western expansion. Kansas City sits where East meets West. If a food distribution model works in Missouri, in St. Louis and the Bootheel, in the Ozarks and Kansas City, it works nationally, because Missouri contains every American economic reality.

This measure rests on verified data and a proven operating model.

1. FOOD AT COST. Approximately 951,000 Missourians are food insecure while the state produces $14.7 billion in agricultural products. Food insecurity in Missouri is a distribution problem, not a production problem. The United States military commissary has distributed food at cost under federal statute since 1867. Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base operate that model on Missouri soil today, in rural counties where surrounding civilians lack affordable groceries. This measure extends the same at-cost distribution model to all Missouri residents. It does not nationalize agriculture. Farms, processors, and distributors remain private; the state purchases at production cost and operates the retail point of sale, exactly as the Defense Commissary Agency has since 1867.

2. THE HEALTH GRADIENT. The Act's findings document why feeding people at cost is a public health measure and not a discretionary expense. The Delmar Divide in St. Louis shows an eighteen-year life expectancy difference across the Delmar Boulevard corridor: same city, same weather, same state government, different floor of the hierarchy. The Whitehall Studies (Marmot), primate research (Sapolsky, Shively), and Nobel Prize-winning telomere research (Blackburn) establish that subordinate social position produces measurable physiological damage even where food, housing, and medical care are present. In Ferguson, fifteen miles from the Gateway Arch, a United States Department of Justice investigation (2015) found a municipal government whose law enforcement practices were shaped by a focus on revenue rather than public safety, with the enforcement burden falling disproportionately on the city's Black residents. A food assurance program addresses one structural channel of that gradient directly, at production cost.

PRECEDENT: Missouri voters approved Medicaid expansion via Amendment 2 in August 2020 with 53.27% of the vote, after the General Assembly declined to act for seven years. The Missouri Supreme Court enforced the result over legislative resistance in Doyle v. Tidball (2021). Missourians have used the initiative process for measures of this kind before. This measure asks them to do it again.

FISCAL IMPACT SUMMARY

ESTIMATED COST: $65,000,000 in first-year appropriations from the general revenue fund ($50,000,000 for the food assurance program; $15,000,000 for the essential goods program), representing approximately four-tenths of one percent of Missouri's approximately $15.4 billion general revenue budget (FY2026).

PROGRAM TARGET AT SCALE: The at-cost food assurance program, serving Missouri's population of approximately 6.27 million residents, is projected at approximately $1.94 billion per year at production cost once operating statewide, approximately 12.6 percent of the general revenue budget and approximately 3.8 percent of the $50.8 billion total state operating budget. This figure applies a per-person base-staple rate of $309 per year.

ESTIMATED SAVINGS: Missouri currently distributes approximately $1.51 billion in SNAP benefits through commercial retailers, where the USDA ERS Food Dollar Series establishes that 75.7 percent of every food dollar pays for markup rather than food production. Routed at cost through the food assurance program, approximately 95 cents of every dollar reaches the recipient as food. Federal H.R. 1 (2025) shifts a larger share of SNAP administrative cost onto the state effective October 1, 2026; the increase in delivered food value per SNAP dollar independently offsets that cost-shift.

REVENUE: Food assurance centers generate revenue through the 5% facility surcharge; the essential goods program through a surcharge not exceeding 10%. Both programs are designed to reduce dependence on general fund appropriations over time.

SIGNATURE LINES

We, the undersigned registered voters of the state of Missouri, respectfully petition the Secretary of State to submit the foregoing measure to the qualified voters of Missouri at the next general election or at a special election called for that purpose.

Signature: _______________________________________________

Print Name: _____________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________________

Date: ___________________________________________________

County of Residence: ____________________________________

[Signature pages to continue per Missouri Secretary of State petition format requirements, with pages organized by congressional district as required by Article III, Section 50 of the Missouri Constitution]

END OF BALLOT

Missouri Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act Citizen Initiative Petition State of Missouri

"Be it enacted by the people of the state of Missouri."