This bill amends RCW 43.23.030 and creates a new, time-limited statutory duty for the Washington State Department of Agriculture to develop and coordinate a statewide food security strategy. It directs the director of agriculture to monitor food system performance, coordinate with state, local, and federal agencies, tribes, universities, nonprofit hunger-relief organizations, industry experts, and individuals with lived experience of food insecurity (including at least one BIPOC household member) and BIPOC small farmers. The strategy must define statewide food security (access, agricultural viability, supply chain resilience), include metrics and a monitoring methodology, track certain agricultural viability costs (including fuel, packaging, and labor) and incremental costs from Washington-specific laws and regulations, establish a disaster-response communications network, identify policy and regulatory barriers, and include a framework for annually updated data on state and federal investments in the hunger safety net. The bill is a procedural and policy change rather than a criminal or penalty change: it creates new administrative duties, reporting requirements, and a policy framework within the Department of Agriculture. It requires the department to deliver the strategy to appropriate legislative committees by December 1, 2027, begin reporting to the legislature on agricultural regulatory competitiveness by June 30, 2030, and then at least once every four years thereafter. The bill defines "department" in the new section as the Department of Agriculture and specifies that Section 1 and the new strategy section expire July 1, 2028. Important details are not provided in the extracted text: the specific "appropriate committees of the legislature" are not named; the methods, data sources, and formulas for calculating "incremental cost" from state laws and regulations are not specified; definitions such as "members of the food policy forum" are not included; and there is no information here about funding, staffing, or enforcement mechanisms. Other sections or provisions that might exist elsewhere in the bill are not present in the extracted facts and could affect interpretation.

If enacted, the Department of Agriculture and its director would take on an expanded, time‑bound role to develop and report a statewide food security strategy, monitor food system performance, and coordinate many state, local, tribal, university, nonprofit, and private stakeholders. The department must deliver the strategy to the Legislature by December 1, 2027, convene specified partners (including BIPOC small farmers and people with lived experience of food insecurity), and begin reporting on Washington’s agricultural regulatory competitiveness every four years starting June 30, 2030; that work will require new data collection on fuel, packaging, and labor costs, tracking safety‑net investments and utilization, and convening outreach and disaster communication efforts. This will most directly increase responsibilities and likely workload for the Department of Agriculture and the director, impose consultation and data‑sharing expectations on the named agencies, universities, tribes, nonprofits, and BIPOC farmers and households, and could create unbudgeted staffing or analytic needs for those participants. Important implementation details are missing or unclear in the extracted text: the bill does not identify which legislative committees receive the strategy, does not set funding or staffing for the new duties, and does not explain the methods for calculating “incremental costs” from Washington laws. There is also an apparent timing uncertainty because the new strategy section is set to expire July 1, 2028 while some mandated reporting is scheduled to begin in 2030; that inconsistency leaves open whether and how longer‑term reporting and follow‑through would actually occur.