Policy Recommendations
The Oakland Food Policy Council's first set of recommendations, Transforming the Oakland Food System: A Plan for Action, is now available for download.
Download a high-resolution, print-quality copy of the report here.
You can also have a look at the ideas that form the heart of this plan below.
Recommended First Steps
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PROTECT AND EXPAND URBAN AGRICULTURE. |
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ENCOURAGE ACCESSIBLE AND AFFORDABLE FARMERS’ MARKETS. Advocate for the development of zoning regulations to protect and expand farmers’ markets. |
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PROMOTE USE OF FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS AT FARMERS’ MARKETS. |
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DEVELOP “ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE PURCHASING PROTOCOLS.” |
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EXPAND COMPOSTING AND FOOD SCRAP RECYCLING. |
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DEVELOP A “FRESH FOOD FINANCING INITIATIVE”. Develop a “Fresh Food Financing Initiative” (FFFI) that will provide financing, technical assistance, and location assistance to new food enterprises in underserved communities. |
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ENCOURAGE HEALTHY MOBILE VENDING. Expand mobile vending regulations to include additional areas of Oakland and encourage fresh food vending. |
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SYNTHETIC PESTICIDE- AND GMO-PRODUCTION FREE ZONES. Build upon the GMO-ban successes of Marin, Trinity, and Mendocino Counties to inform Alameda County-wide policies on pesticide and GMO-free zones. |
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SCALE UP LOCAL PURCHASING. Scale up purchasing from local producers, and formalize the collaborations between and aggregation of small farmers. |
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STRENGTHEN COMMUNITY-GOVERNMENT LINKS. Build relationships between residents, community leaders, and key government representatives. |
All illustrations by Hai Vo.
How did we arrive at these "First Steps"?
Choosing Priorities
The food system is complex, and each link in the system affects every other link. We have been careful to consider the system in its entirety from the outset, beginning with a set of eight comprehensive goals, as follows:
1. Increase food security in Oakland. We will work to ensure that no Oakland resident experiences hunger.
2. Build greater public health in Oakland. We will support the development of balanced food environments that empower residents with opportunities to make healthy food choices and reduce environmental causes of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related illnesses.
3. Support local agriculture that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. We will help make Oakland a market for processing and consuming local food, with the objective of having at least 30 percent of Oakland's food needs sourced from within the City and the surrounding region.
4. Promote energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption. We will promote local, sustainable food production, and help Oakland transition to a locally- and regionally-based food system.
5. Support the protection of environmental resources. We will promote consumption of locally and sustainably-grown food, particularly food produced using environmentally-benign and energy-efficient growing, processing and distribution practices.
6. Promote a “closed-loop” food system. We will work for a system that eliminates pollution and use of non-renewable materials, and will promote food scrap composting.
7. Promote community economic development. We will foster development in the food sector that creates living-wage jobs and local ownership in many sectors of the food system.
8. Increase public “food literacy.”We will promote the sharing of information that will allow communities to make food-related choices that positively influence public health, social responsibility and environmental sustainability.
We used a tool called Whole Measures for Community Food Systems: Values-Based Planning and Evaluation (Center for Whole Communities, 2009) to help us choose priorities. This tool breaks down the concept of a healthy food system into six “Values”: Justice and Fairness; Strong Communities; Vibrant Farms; Healthy People; Sustainable Ecosystems; and Thriving Local Economies. Each of these “Values” consists of many “Practices” that when all occurring together would constitute a thriving food system.
To determine which “Practices” need the most improvement in Oakland, each councilmember used the tool to complete an evaluation of the Oakland food system’s strengths and weaknesses. This was done while bearing in mind each councilmember’s personal experience and expertise, in addition to the data and community input gathered for the food system reports all councilmembers have studied. The results of this exercise were aggregated and presented back to councilmembers in our March meeting, where Coleman-Smith led a facilitated discussion resulting in selection of our first-year priorities. These prioritized “practices”, listed below, formed the basis for our policy recommendations at the neighborhood, city, public-private partnerships, and state levels.
Justice and Fairness:
Ensure that schools and other public institutions serve healthy and delicious meals to all and give preference to purchasing food from local farms.
Strong Communities:
Include and improve access to local government agencies that can support the stability of local/regional food infrastructures according to the community’s interests.
Vibrant Farms:
Develop policies that encourage success in small and midscale farming ventures and urban agriculture; decrease exposure to hazards; and support fair labor practices.
Healthy People:
Utilize a broad range of public investments and tools (such as land use planning) to increase access to healthy food and decrease inequities across race and class that contribute to food insecurity and compromise health.
Sustainable Ecosystems:
Implement steps to eliminate artificial pesticides and fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, and other contaminants that disrupt ecosystems and human health.
Thriving Local Economies:
Help promote affordable local and regional sustainably grown, harvested or produced food within the food system, and promote local businesses to distribute and promote these in every community, especially underserved communities.
Once we had chosen these “practices”, we developed several “recommended first steps” for each one, ultimately arriving at the ten FIRST STEPS listed at the top of this page. These will all be fleshed out in our soon-to-be-released document, "Transforming the Oakland Food System: A Plan for Action."
