Food Policy Resources

The City of Saint Paul, Minnesota is an acknowledged national and international leader in creating a vision for a municipal food policy. Saint Paul is among six cities, including Los Angeles and Toronto, known to have invested time and resources in planning for a sustainable food system. The results of that process, which culminated in the 1987 Saint Paul City Municipal Food Policy, is a visionary and foundational document that can direct community and City efforts to this day. The St. Paul Commission on Food and Nutrition was appointed to implement the policy, but came to an end in 1999 without realizing the whole vision of the Food Policy. Since then there has been no organized municipal attention to food policy in the City, until now.

Created  by Seitu Jones, Anna Wasescha, Kathryn Draeger

FRESH, an initiative of New York City Mayor Bloomberg's Five-Borough Economic Opportunity Plan, promotes the establishment and retention of neighborhood grocery stores in underserved communities by providing zoning and financial incentives.

This report is a response to the growing interest in food and healthy eating among planners and communities nationwide. It describes how community and regional food planning can be used to facilitate healthy eating in communities. Following an introduction to community and regional food planning, this report describes survey results of planners' opinion of and role in this emerging area of planning. The report also includes case studies of six communities--Marin County, CA; Madison, WI; Philadelphia, PA; Louisville, KY; Portland, OR; Buffalo, NY--that have demonstrated leadership in promoting healthy eating using innovative strategies. The report concludes with strategies that planners can use to plan and design neighborhoods, routes, and destinations to facilitate healthy eating and build healthier communities.

Created by Samina Raja, Branden Born, Jessica Kozlowski Russell

The purpose of this project was to engage Aboriginal communities in discussions that would enable individuals and groups involved with food related action to explore and identify ways that the British Columbia (Canada) Food Systems Network's Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty can support their work on increasing food security.

Prepared by Dawn Morrison

This article presents a new approach, the Cynefin framework, to leadership and decision making based on complexity science.  This framework offers ways to see new viewpoints, assimilate complex concepts, and address real-world problems and opportunities. It sorts the issues into five contexts, simple, complicated, complex, chaotic and disorder, defined by the nature of the relationship between cause and effect. Using the Cynefin framework can help to make better decisions and also avoid the problems that arise when a preferred management style causes mistakes. This article offers examples and suggestions about how to lead by making appropriate decisions.

Municipal governments are in a unique position to plan for and support development projects that incorporate local urban agriculture and to integrate direction for urban agriculture into a broad policy framework. This report provides an overview of Canadian best practices in urban agriculture and a set of recommendations for how the City of Kamloops (British Columbia, Canada) can support urban agriculture.

Studies organizational role of FPCs, and proposes methods for effective structure and operation.

Created by Rebecca Schiff

Sample procurement policy for hospitals to customize and use for meat, poultry, dairy and seafood purchasing in their facilities. 

This toolkit is composed of research on how Americans think about the food we eat, the way it is produced and delivered, and the policies that affect it. Also included are new applications materials, based on the research findings, that can help engage the public in understanding food policies, potential reforms and solutions to pressing problems. 

Details the potential for state and local policies to advance progressive agricultural/food system reform. 

This toolkit brings to issues advocates some of the most exciting new thinking on communications. The FrameWorks Institute, in partnership with a research team of scholars and practitioners, has pioneered a new approach to communicating social issues called strategic frame analysis. This approach incorporates key concepts from the cognitive and social sciences that govern how people process information, especially news, with special emphasis on social problems, from adolescent development and child care to low-wage work and violence prevention.

Created by Susan Nall Bales

Following a brief description on food security and the roots of food policy - or the lack thereof - this paper examines the need for public participation in food policy and provides two illustrations from the Canadian experience. What emerges is the realization that the energy to engage citizens in discussions around the food system is not coming primarily from policy makers, but rather from citizens themselves who have organized and initiated processes to influence policy from the ground up.

Created by Kenton Lobe

The first national Native Food Summit was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on November 15-17, 2002. The Native Food Summit was attended by 113 participants representing tribes, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, foundations, and the federal government. The Native Food Summit helped participants increase their understanding of Native agriculture and food systems, build new partnerships, and strengthen networks. At the same time, the working groups provided an opportunity for participants to identify major policy issues related to Native agriculture and food systems. This report is a summary of the event sessions and policy recommendations from Summit working groups.

Created by Sarah Dewees

This report provides a toolkit of standardized measurement tools for assessing various aspects of community food security. It includes a general guide to community assessment and focused materials for examining six basic assessment components related to community food security. These include guides for profiling general community characteristics and community food resources as well as materials for assessing household food security, food resource accessibility, food availability and affordability, and community food production resources.

Created by Barbara Cohen, Margaret Andrews, and Linda Scott Kantor

This Platform provides access to a comprehensive database of resources related to urban policies and programmes, to achieve sustainable urban food systems. It covers a wide range of aspects: Governance and planning, Sustainable diets and nutrition, Social and economic equity, Food production and ecosystem management, Food supply and distribution, Food loss and waste. This collection of information and evidences from various types of organizations (FAO and non-FAO) and practitioners includes: Knowledge Documents (articles, reports, case studies, etc.) and Policy Documents (policy briefs, actions plan, guidelines, reports, etc.) in different formats.
A dedicated section lists global and regional Events. 

A searchable collection of local public policies that explicitly support community food systems. This database provides policymakers, government staff, and others interested in food policy with concrete examples of local public policies that have been adopted to address a range of food systems issues: rural and urban food production, farmland protection, transfer of development rights, food aggregation and distribution infrastructure, local food purchasing and procurement, healthy food access, food policy councils, food policy coordination, food system metrics, tax reductions and exemptions for food infrastructure, and much more.

The legislation database tracks federal policies from 2010-2019 and all state policies related to obesity and diet-related diseases in issue areas including access to healthy food, breastfeeding, farms and gardens, school nutrition and physical activity, food assistance programs, marketing/advertising to children, menu and package labeling, and food and beverage taxes.