{"id":275213,"date":"2026-05-18T14:58:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/275213\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T14:58:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:58:42","slug":"budget-conference-house-is-holding-out-on-a-bipartisan-feeding-tampa-bay-funding-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/275213\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget conference: House is holding out on a bipartisan Feeding Tampa Bay funding request"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Feeding Tampa Bay funding is among Tampa Bay area projects that remain in play as negotiations continue week.<\/p>\n

A Feeding Tampa Bay<\/a> initiative to dehydrate surplus produce into millions of longer-lasting meals to address food insecurity is among the local projects still unresolved<\/a> as lawmakers enter a new week of budget negotiations<\/a> during the ongoing Special Session.<\/p>\n

The project has bipartisan support from the Tampa Bay legislative delegation, with Apollo Beach Republican Rep. Michael Owen<\/a> sponsoring the House request and St. Petersburg Democratic Sen. Darryl Rouson<\/a> sponsoring the Senate version. But the full chambers are split over whether to fund it.<\/p>\n

The Senate\u2019s latest agriculture and natural resources budget offer includes $1 million for the project, while the House\u2019s latest offer includes no funding.<\/p>\n

The request has already been tapered back from the original ask of nearly $1.9 million in nonrecurring state funding through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The funds would help the organization scale up food processing, dehydration and automated bagging systems to transform 10 million to 15 million pounds of surplus produce over the next three to five years into 7 million to 12 million meals, according to appropriations request records.<\/p>\n

The dehydration process would extend the shelf life of produce without refrigeration, helping ensure a more consistent supply of nutritious food during emergency situations or months when fresh local produce is less available.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with Florida\u2019s farmers, Feeding Tampa Bay will scale innovative food processing, dehydration, and automated bagging systems to drastically increase the annual supply of high-quality, nutritious meals for food-insecure families across the state,\u201d Rouson wrote in the appropriation request.<\/p>\n

The project would be based in Hillsborough County but serve Feeding Tampa Bay\u2019s 10-county region, which includes Citrus, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sumter counties.<\/p>\n

Conference offers are still being traded\u00a0as negotiations continue this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Feeding Tampa Bay funding is among Tampa Bay area projects that remain in play as negotiations continue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[30202,820,12439,3535,28724,8705,6237,629,4134,33194,4136,1157,7153,199,11715,135,1526,137,136],"class_list":["post-275213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-citrus","tag-darryl-rouson","tag-feeding-tampa-bay","tag-food-insecurity","tag-hardee","tag-hernando","tag-highlands","tag-hillsborough","tag-manatee","tag-michael-owen","tag-pasco","tag-pinellas","tag-polk","tag-st-petersburg","tag-sumter","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}