Oakland Food Policy Council
Policy and Agency Scan

Research and analysis team: Jamie Nash, Alexandra Hudson, Alexandria Fisher, Chris Penalosa, Autif Kamal, Colleen Lynch, Beth Sanders

Download the Policy and Agency Scan in three parts:

• Introduction and summary
• Policy Scan (note that this excel workbook contains three worksheets)
• Agency Scan

Our online searchable policy and agency database is coming soon!

Introduction

The Oakland Food Policy Council (OFPC) is a 21-member council whose goal is to make policy recommendations to the City of Oakland in order to create a healthier and equitable local food system. This includes increasing access to healthy foods, building a strong local economy within the food sector, as well as promoting ecologically sound agricultural practices on both urban and rural farms. To more effectively make policy recommendations to the city based on these goals, the OFPC created a scan of existing policies and relevant agencies related to these topic areas—including ordinances and legislation on the municipal, county, and state levels—that are currently implemented. The scan can help direct the OFPC’s primary work groups— comprised of City Innovations, Neighborhood Innovations, Regional & State Innovations, and Public-Private Partnerships—which created their initial policy recommendations in 2010.

Under the supervision of the OFPC’s Coordinator, Alethea Harper, a team of interns created a database of all policies related to the Oakland food system at the City of Oakland, Alameda County, and state of California levels. The Policy Scan covers a range of issues, including how agricultural land is used in the city, hunger and welfare policies, city ordinances for street vending, and school district food purchasing. There are currently 150 policies included in the database, and this number is expected to increase as more updates are made. The Agency Scan is a database that includes all of the government agencies at the city, county, and state levels that are responsible for creating or implementing the policies listed in the Policy Scan. There are currently about 40 agencies listed. These scans attempt to cover policy issues dealing with each sector of the food system, including production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste management.

Although the focus of these scans for the purposes of the OFPC’s immediate progress is on the local to state levels, the national context of food and nutrition policy should also be acknowledged. More comprehensive reviews of policies and agencies on the national level have been compiled, including a report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)[i]. These are helpful references for broader policy action initiatives.

Objectives

The goal of both scans is to provide a background on which policies are already ‘on the books’ so future recommendations to improve Oakland’s food system are not duplicated. The scans also identify which agencies are involved so that the OFPC knows with whom to form partnerships when preparing to make formal policy recommendations. In the future, the OFPC research team will transform the database into a resource website available for community members, organizations and government agencies.

Findings

In the process of cross-referencing policies at the city, county, and state levels in the scan and comparing them to the OFPC’s workgroup recommendations, the OFPC research team found that there are only a few policies which directly address efforts to create and maintain a sustainable food system in Oakland. This void indicates that there is great need for the OFPC to continue its work and creates a great window of opportunity for future policy recommendations to fill these gaps.

In order to make effective policy recommendations to improve the local food system, it is important to understand where the OFPC’s goals interface with existing municipal, country, and states policies. The table below reflects how such policies correspond to the council’s eight main goals:

In May of 2010, the OFPC decided to prioritize six areas of focus and consequently, its four primary workgroups developed preliminary policy recommendations. Below is a comparison of the Policy Scan content and the proposed workgroup policy recommendations:

Conclusion

In summary, some but certainly not a majority of OFPC’s policy priorities are currently being addressed through existing local, country, or state ordinances, laws, and/or rules. These areas relate to urban agriculture zoning; Oakland Unified School District’s environmentally preferable purchasing policy; mobile vending regulations; expanding composting and recycling programs; incorporating the use of EBT for healthy food in farmers’ markets, WIC programs, and senior nutrition programs; and lastly, banning pesticide and GMO foods in Oakland. The areas where the council’s priorities are not being addressed through existing policies include new RFP standards prioritizing Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Protocols and nutrition standards for all City food contracts; formalizing collaboration and aggregations of small farmers to scale up local purchasing from small(er) producers; farmers’ market zoning; education and support for urban agriculture endeavors; and establishing and providing technical assistance for urban and rural small farmers to utilize the Fresh Food Financing Initiative.

Project Caveats and Limitations

The scans are a work in progress, with continual updates and the addition of future policies to come. This will be crucial while moving forward and using the databases to effectively create policy change in the way that the OFPC intends. Because this project is dependent upon the work of a changing team of part-time interns, there may be information that needs to be updated. We are eager to have continual feedback, specifically from experts in the community, regarding policy areas that need expanding or clarification.

Other Resources

California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA) tracks California state legislation related to food. Visit their legislative tracking page here.