After recently attending a Food
Empowerment conference at Rutgers in Newark, I was left to consider the
necessity of cities to secure
sustainable and resilient foodsheds and the types of policies that would go
hand in hand with supporting these structures. In researching ideas I came across a new 2011 law review
article from the Fordham Environmental Law Review: Regional
Foodsheds: Are Our Local Zoning and Land Use Regulations Healthy? The article explains some of the reasons
why its so important to focus on agriculture as a solution to our recent
environmental, health and social equity issues and also inventories some local
communities efforts (within the USA) and the policies they are experimenting
with to create and sustain local foodsheds.
The most crucial point the article
makes, and one which policy makers, activists and local communities should take
note of, if they want to create an inclusive, broad reaching and sustainable foodsystem,
is the idea that planning for regional foodsheds should be a collaborative
process: “Regional foodshed planning must be comprehensive, and it should ―approach food not just [as] a
commodity but as an infrastructural system. . . that needs to be managed and considered in all urban
and regional planning efforts.”
Currently, in most situations, food is viewed exclusively as a
commodity. This understanding of
food is as unsustainable and unhealthy as it is incorrect, and we should be as concerned about the present
dysfunctional state of our food supply system as we are with other forms of our
crumbling infrastructure - roads and foreign-oil dependence. Consider our current dependent on
foreign oil and how stressful the situation has become, now imagine being
dependent upon foreign food. We
would soon find ourselves in the situation faced by the majority of the global
south, where crops are grown for export and the farmers growing these crops
cannot afford to buy imported staple crops to feed themselves. It is past time to consider how we can
improve our current food system structure, and our relationship with food
itself.
The article begins by providing an
overview of local and regional foodsheds, reviewing not only the environmental
and public health benefits, but also highlighting the economic benefits:
In 2009, U.S. households spent more than $526 billion on food
produced outside of the home, indicating a significant economic market for
locally grown and processed food. Local sourcing can supply a significant
amount of food. A recent Michigan State University study posits that by
converting vacant urban land to a host of urban agriculture related…, Detroit
residents could be supplied with 76% of their vegetables and more than 40% of
their fruits… Strong regional food
markets economically support labor-intensive small and medium sized farms,
which have been overtaken in the past several decades by mechanized,
large-scale industrial agricultural operations. Local economies are also
reinforced as the foodshed movement spurs the need for local food processing
facilities and agri-businesses providing supplies, equipment and services… In
addition to job creation and economic development, regional food markets reduce
transportation costs and provide some insulation from volatility in the global
food market. Furthermore, regional markets for production and processing can
decrease costs for healthy foods, which can in turn produce economic benefits
by preventing health care costs from diseases associated with poor diet and
obesity.
Following this overview, the authors
go on to detail strategies that local governments might attempt: creating food
policy councils/task forces and incorporating food policies into their
comprehensive planning.
Some local comprehensive plans
contain sections…that touch on regional food policies, such as agriculture,
sustainability, or economic development elements. For example, in Marin County,
CA the plan supports “the production and marketing of healthy, fresh, locally
grown food.”
The article also delves into a number
of other policies being tried across the country, including policies that many
larger cities (including NYC) have begun to explore: employing the purchasing
power of local governments (and also large institutions):
Procurement policies that favor
locally grown foods can help establish a market to support regional food
production. In
Cleveland, for example, an ordinance was passed in 2010 that requires the
commissioner of purchases and supplies and each contracting department to
develop a list of local food producers and businesses and to ―endeavor to maximize purchases from these sources. It also
favors contract bidders that are locally based and purchase twenty percent of
their food locally. Albany County, New York, has also enacted a policy to
increase the percentage of local food consumed at the county‘s residential
healthcare and correctional facilities. The policy recognizes that locally
produced food supports the regional economy, requires less oil and gas, and
provides nutritional benefits. Furthermore,
in early 2011, a proposal was introduced in New York City to increase purchases
of New York state food by city agencies.
The article is a great general
starting place for anyone wanting to view a broad array of possibilities for
their local communities. It is
also an invaluable tool for those in Newark’s city government and others
involved in the redevelopment of the city’s food system and the new
sustainability plan.
