Grocery, Farm, and Food Worker Protection Act of 2026

The Grocery, Farm, and Food Worker Protection Act of 2026 would direct the Agricultural Marketing Service to establish a grant program providing financial stabilization payments to workers in agriculture, meat processing, and grocery retail sectors when they experience hardship from natural disasters or other disasters. Rather than providing direct payments to individual workers, the bill proposes that funding be distributed through membership organizations and labor unions that represent these worker groups, which would then administer the stabilization payments to their members.

If enacted, this bill would aim to provide a safety net for essential food system workers who often face economic vulnerability during emergencies. Farmworkers, meat processing workers, and grocery workers are critical to food supply chains, and the bill recognizes that natural disasters can disrupt their livelihoods. By establishing this grant program, the legislation would create a mechanism to help these workers maintain financial stability during periods when they cannot work due to disaster-related circumstances.