“Smarter Rules for Farmers Markets”  HB 5657 Implementation Update

 In 2014, the Illinois General Assembly passed HB 5657 ( Smarter Rules for Farmers Markets), that made a number of reforms to farmers market regulations in Illinois to support consistency, transparency and economic opportunity.   Since last summer,  the Illinois Farmers Market Task Force  has worked on creating statewide farmers market regulation and made their recommendations to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH)  in December  2014.

HB5657  is a  major step forward in addressing a number of barriers to the growth and sustainability of farmers’ markets.  This new law does the following:

• Created a strict timeline for the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Farmers Market Task Force to develop consistent and uniform statewide administrative rules and regulations for farmers markets. The draft rules are still being reviewed by IDPH.

• Created a new statewide sampling license for farmers’ markets license to allow farmers and entrepreneurs to easily offer product samples at multiple farmers’ markets under one license. The recommended “Food Sampling Regulations” were sent to the Joint Committee on Administrative Review (JCAR) on April 9^th and are now available for comments until May 18^th.   ISA and IFMA will be sending out information about this in the next week.

• Caps registration fees for Cottage Food Operations at $25/year

• Created new product origin requirements to foster transparency and help consumers identify “re-sellers” at farmers’ markets. Vendors at farmers markets must have product origin information at the point of sale either on a label, packing slip or signage that states the physical address of the farm or farms on which the products were grown or produced. This requirement is only for specialty crops and raw agricultural commodities at farmers markets, This new law was introduced in order to improve transparency and verification practices of farm locations for customers and market managers.  These should be simple signs and not difficult for vendors for compliance. At this time, there are no requirements for the size of the signage etc.   (see IDPH Memo below about this)

             IL Dept of Public Health Memo    CLICK HERE

 Sec. 3.5. Product origin bill language

“All vendors or booths selling specialty crops and raw agricultural commodities at a farmers’ market in Illinois must post at the point of sale a placard or include on a label or packing slip the physical address of the farm or farms on which  those products were grown or produced.”

 

• HB 5657 legislation http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=09800HB5657enr&GA=98&SessionId=85&DocTypeId=HB&LegID=80809&DocNum=5657&GAID=12&Session=

• Webinar about this new law

Two webinars were presented on Monday, August 25: 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. and Thursday, August 28: 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.  Both provided an opportunity for farmers market vendors and farmers market managers to learn about new regulations and reforms that impact farmers markets and provide input to the Governor-appointed Illinois Farmers Market Task Force about future farmers market regulations.

• The recording from the August 28, 7:00 p.m. webinar is available at

 Materials from the webinar and other items of interest are available at 

The webinars were sponsored by , Illinois Farmers Market Association and .