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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Local Food Advocates Pushing for Changes in Springfield

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Thursday, April 7, 2016   

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Advocates of sustainable food are in Springfield today talking about local food policies, as a state Senate committee considers a seed-sharing bill.

Supporters of HB 3130 believe it will help protect free, public seed exchanges.

According to Illinois Stewardship Alliance, over the past few years at least two states have tightened restrictions on seed libraries.

But policy associate Rebecca Osland with Illinois Stewardship Alliance says recently Minnesota and Pennsylvania reversed course by passing bills to exempt seed exchanges from complying with commercial regulations.

Osland says Illinois should add similar exemptions for local seed libraries.

"This is important to biodiversity; it's been a tradition that people have engaged in since the beginning of agrarian time," she says. "So, we wanted to just be proactive and clarify the law here."

But, some state-level agriculture regulators have come out in favor of tighter monitoring, saying it could prevent someone from sneaking toxic or weed seeds into a library.

Osland, however, says those concerns are overblown. She argues, adding more regulations to seed libraries would benefit the commercial seed industry at the expense of smaller, local food producers. Osland says the exemptions in HB 3130 would only apply to non-patented, noncommercial seeds.

"It'll be a really strong message that this is a value that we have," she says. "People should be able to garden and save seed, that we have this freedom to exchange that product of nature."

So far, the seed-library exemption has earned bipartisan support from at least six state senators.


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