The Growing Food Connections Policy Database was launched today at the American Farmland Trust’s national conference, which includes sessions on food systems policy, in Lexington, Ky., and is available online: http://growingfoodconnections.org/tools-resources/policy-database
The content development for the database was led by Kimberley Hodgson, principal, Cultivating Healthy Places, in partnership with the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab at the University at Buffalo, American Planning Association, American Farmland Trust and Ohio State University.
Growing Food Connections is a five-year, $3.96 million research initiative funded by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program has compiled over 100 policies governing issues as diverse as public investment in food systems, farmland protection, local food procurement and food policy council resolutions.
Best Practices Food Guide for Municipalities
Deloitte recently published this food practices guide for the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) to help them promote local food systems and inform the development of local food goals and targets.
https://www.amo.on.ca/AMO-PDFs/Reports/2013/2013BestPracticesinLocalFoodAGuideforMunicipalitie.aspx
The opportunity of using the food system as a central building block of a city
For thousands of years, every element of the food system was visible in cities – growing food and raising animals, processing raw ingredients and making food, storing food, selling food, eating food, celebrating food and learning about food. In the past century, with the rise of the engine and the automobile / trucking, we have inadvertently buried or hidden so much of the food system.
Food is raised or grown elsewhere – often thousands of miles away. It is processed and warehoused far away. If it is more local, it is hidden deep in an industrial area. In today’s urban fabric, we rarely encounter any aspect of the food system but food retail at a grocery store and the eating of food in a restaurant.
A significant opportunity to create more animated and resilient cities in the future is to consciously make the whole food system more present and visible in our urban areas. It’s not a matter of becoming locally self-sufficient for growing and raising food – that will never happen in our modern cities and isn’t necessary, but having some food grown or raised in the urban fabric adds a deep archetypal experience and depth to our urban experience. Likewise with watching workers process and pack food stuffs. And the same goes for all the other aspects of the system.
For more on the whole food system perspective, see the work being done on Agricultural Urbanism, Agrarian Urbanism and others.
(cross posted at www.hollandplan.com)
—————————————————————————————————-
Job opportunity for mobile market operator
June 4, 2014
Also, very exciting, there is currently a job posting for a mobile market operator in Vancouver BC: The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society is seeking a Curbside Fresh Market Operator to join our team for a seasonal, contract position. The ideal candidate is an outgoing, food savvy individual that is interested in helping increase access to healthy food in key areas throughout Vancouver. The Curbside Fresh Market Operator is an energetic, people person, comfortable in liaising with a broad range of populations and a passion for making a difference in the community.
Full job posting at: https://www.foodbank.bc.ca/sites/default/files/gvfbs-csfm-contract.pdf
