Food Policy Resources

The majority of food policy councils subsist on a budget of less than $10,000 a year, making funding food systems policy work among the top challenges of food policy councils.  While we still don't know how to reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we know some people that can offer directions. The Food Policy Networks project of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future hosted this panel of funders and food policy council leaders for a virtual roundtable conversation about how to express the value of your work and make the case for support for your food policy council. Hear about why healthcare foundations, private foundations, and public charities are supporting food policy councils.  Learn from the experiences of peer FPCs about how to talk about the impact of your work. 

Presented by: Alison Babb, Jill Egland, Laureen Husband, Christine James, and Ken Morse.

The information in this fact sheet pertains to the federal rule that addresses menu labeling in restaurants and similar retail food establishments. This fact sheet provides information about what regulatory options remain for state and local governments. It answers common questions about how state and local governments can enforce the federal rule and the authority these governments have to implement other menu labeling regulations.

Across North America, civic-oriented groups are conducting grass-roots projects to develop community food systems. Projects are addressing issues such as local food security, healthy food access, and agriculture economic development. Local governments are paying increasing attention to this new policy arena; however, policy environments that support these projects are often lacking. Using the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), this paper presents the case of Franklin County, Ohio to illustrate how a civically-oriented group transitioned into an advocacy coalition.

The Edible Inquiries interactive webinar series is part of the Food Policy Networks project's broader efforts to connect researchers and food policy councils, with the aim of fostering research on food policy groups that is relevant, proactive, and responsive. This inaugural webinar featured four researchers who have recently published academic research about monitoring the internal organization and evaluating the external impacts of food policy groups.  
 
Presented by: Larissa Calancie, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of North Carolina Center for Health Equity Research; Jill Clark, Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University John Glenn College of Public Affairs; Caitlin Marquis, Healthy Hampshire Coordinator; Ana Moragues Faus, Research Fellow at the Cardiff University School of Geography and Planning.

The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future has collaborated with the Baltimore Food Policy Initiative since 2012 to examine the physical food environment in Baltimore City. The CLF has conducted research – focused on food retail and healthy food availability – and analysis using geographic information systems technology to identify gaps and opportunities in Baltimore City’s food environment. The research reports and accompanying maps can be used as policy and planning tools to guide and assess strategies in creating a healthier and more equitable food environment in Baltimore City.

This comprehensive analysis explores federal, New York state, and New York City policies and programs that can support nutrition education; offers first-hand insight into publicly supported nutrition education from New York State players; and provides specific recommendations for policymakers to improve the nutrition education landscape.

Created by Claire Uno, Julia McCarthy, Pamela Koch, Alison Hard, Callie Troutman, Georgia Simatou, Isobel R. Contento

This resource includes a 20-minute presentation on the Appalachian Foodshed Partnership network map, a pdf of the slides from the presentation and the surveys that were used to populate the map (individuals and organizations).

Not all efforts to influence public policy meet the definition of lobbying, so 501(c)(3) organizations can play a significant advocacy role while still staying within their annual lobbying limits. This fact sheet outlines the types of decisions that are designed to influence federal, state and local agency rules (including school boards), executive orders, and regulations.

Federal tax law controls how much lobbying 501(c)(3) organizations can engage in. Public charities can choose to measure their lobbying under either the insubstantial part test or the 501(h) expenditure test. While lobbying is not defined under the insubstantial part test, this fact sheet provides an overview of how lobbying is defined for organizations that measure their lobbying under the 501(h) expenditure test.

Those working within Cooperative Extension organizations and community development professionals are often asked to engage in the development of local food councils. This free online course provides information and a basic set of skills to equip professionals with the tools they need to feel more confident leading or assisting with this work. More than 20 Cooperative Extension and community development professionals contributed to this self-paced, no-cost course, which contains videos and resources that can be used during food council meetings.

The Staple Foods Ordinance amends Minneapolis, Minnesota city codes to require all small food retailers and grocery stores stock a variety of dairy products, proteins, bread, cereal, vegetables and fruit - most of which must be fresh. Though the initiative was born from concerns for public safety, as policy makers were concerned that stores chiefly selling alcohol, tobacco, and highly processed foods were magnets for crime, the ordinance also served to make Minneapolis the first city to regulate nutritional standards in food stores.

Sharing a powerful food policy story is vital to garnering support for new policies. Esri Story Maps, a web-based tool that combines maps with narrative text, images, and multimedia content, provides one platform to develop and share these stories. This webinar provides an overview of the types of story maps available, how they have been used to tell impactful food policy stories, and a brief demonstration to help you get started making a story map of your own. Presenters include the head of Esri's Story Maps team as well as a practitioner that has used story maps to communicate about her work on environment, agriculture, and food policy in Missouri. Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future staff members also shared their experiences using story maps to support food policy in Maryland. 

Presented by: Allen Carroll, Esri; Melissa Vatterott, Missouri Coalition for the Environment; and Carrie Burns and Jamie Harding, Center for a Livable Future.

The top tier of EPA's Food Recovery Hierarchy is source reduction, which is reducing the volume of surplus food generated.  Source Reduction can be challenging to understand, quantify and implement. Businesses and organizations can learn to effectively prevent wasted food by taking source reduction steps such as inventorying supplies, changing processes and buying less.  Looking through a Sustainable Materials Management lens, preventing wasted food provides the greatest potential for cost savings and resource conservation relative to the other Food Recovery Hierarchy activities, as demonstrated by the US EPA Waste Reduction Model. This webinar introduced progressive examples from a state agency and the business community that prevent wasted food at the source.

Presenters: David Allaway, Stephanie Barger, Brian Balukonis, Marc Wincott, André Villaseñor

This guide presents a menu of tools, approaches and examples, including a model climate-friendly food purchasing policy and standards, acknowledging the many ways that cities and counties can advance climate-friendly and healthy food procurement.

Created by Kari Hamerschlag, Alicia Culver, Chloé Waterman, and Becca Bartholomew

I attended a rally at the FDA where individuals brought in raw milk from Pennsylvania (where its legal) to Maryland for the rally. Homemade cookies were also passed around and shared with the protesters and the police. The police chuckled and said they couldn't accept but some laughed and said they grew up on raw milk. It was a peaceful rally full of good cookies, raw milk, and good cheer. Protests can be playful to make a point. Policy Networks Photo Contest. 

Image credit: Tiffany Bassford, Food Passion Project; CLF Food Policy Networks Photo Contest, 2017.

By downloading this image, you agree to use the photo within the context that it was taken. You also agree to never use it for commercial purposes. The image always belongs to the original photographer and should be attributed to the photographer and Center for a Livable Future Food

Hundreds of people took part in DC's Grocery Walk on October 14, 2017, through historic Anacostia to highlight the difficulty of getting fresh food in parts of the District and to demand food justice and access to healthy foods for all DC residents.

Image credit: Brian Oh, DC Greens; CLF Food Policy Networks Photo Contest, 2017.

By downloading this image, you agree to use the photo within the context that it was taken. You also agree to never use it for commercial purposes. The image always belongs to the original photographer and should be attributed to the photographer and Center for a Livable Future Food Policy Networks Photo Contest. 

Local Produce Link (LPL) is a New York State Department of Health Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (NYSDOH HPNAP) grant-funded initiative that connects regional farmers with food-insecure communities in New York City. Using the community-supported agriculture model, 9 farmers make weekly deliveries during the growing season to provide fresh produce to food pantries in the five boroughs. Designed with the hub-and-spoke concept, one food pantry serves as the hub host and receives 4-6 shares of vegetables during the June- November season. The host keeps a vegetable share while the hub's participating member food pantries pick up the remaining shares to distribute to clients as part of a balanced food package. An important distinction of LPL is that the vegetables delivered are not gleaned or rescued; the farmers are all contracted with grant funds to grow crops for these pantry communities.

Another unique aspect of the program is the relationship-building that occurs between the pantry communities and the farmers who grow their food. There are annual farm trips when LPL staff invite pantry staff, volunteers, and clients as a group to visit the farms located in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to learn about responsible growing practices directly from their farmers. This image was captured in August 2017 at Whistle Down Farm in Hudson, New York. Guests had a picnic lunch, a tour of the farm's acreage, a dip in the stream, and then harvested purslane. At the end of the trip, everyone was given Health Bucks, which are typically redeemed at farmers markets throughout New York State. Here, Maribel Ambrosio and her daughter Millie are exchanging their Health Bucks for fresh-picked tomatoes from farmer Nicholas Pandjiris. Everyone on the trip was thrilled to take some edible souvenirs from this memorable day back home to the city!

Image credit: Jennifer Horan, United Way of New York City; CLF Food Policy Networks Photo Contest, 2017.

By downloading this image, you agree to use the photo within the context that it was taken. You also agree to never use it for commercial purposes. The image always belongs to the original photographer and should be attributed to the photographer and Center for a Livable Future Food Policy Networks Photo Contest.

Kassandra Hernandez and Summer Sullivan, AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) members based at California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) as the Food Pantry Coordinator and Edible Garden Coordinator respectively, giggle as they learn how to do soil testing in preparation for seed planting. The Edible Garden will bring local, nutritious produce to the campus through the CSUB Food Pantry in an effort to reduce high food insecurity rates on campus.

Image credit: Kern Food Policy Council; CLF Food Policy Networks Photo Contest, 2017.

By downloading this image, you agree to use the photo within the context that it was taken. You also agree to never use it for commercial purposes. The image always belongs to the original photographer and should be attributed to the photographer and Center for a Livable Future Food Policy Networks Photo Contest.

Vanessa Garcia Polanco, 21, Rhode Island Food Policy Council, visited one of the oldest farmers markets in Los Angeles, CA as part of the Association of Food and Human Values annual conference. The conference offered a food policy and food justice track that bused attendees around town to show them physical success and challenges with food policy in their city. This picture recognizes that direct customer sales like farmers markets were illegal in California until 1978 and thanks to the dedication of many growers and advocates in CA and nationwide, now we have thriving direct market sales opportunities. After this trip, Vanessa was thankful for the over 45 farmers market in her home state of RI. 

Image credit: Vanessa Garcia Polanco, Rhode Island Food Policy Council; CLF Food Policy Networks Photo Contest, 2017.

By downloading this image, you agree to use the photo within the context that it was taken. You also agree to never use it for commercial purposes. The image always belongs to the original photographer and should be attributed to the photographer and Center for a Livable Future Food Policy Networks Photo Contest.

Chefs and cooks are a crucial connection between farmers and consumers. As drivers of food systems change across all sectors, they can be advocates and leaders in public and private institutions. They can maintain their growing popularity as innovative change activists by creating a culture of care in their kitchens and taking action to influence the decisions of policy-makers. By partnering with producers and waste management, chefs can more efficiently match demand with supply and minimize food waste in the food supply chain.

Image credit: Sylwia Padiasek, Karen Karp & Partners; CLF Food Policy Networks Photo Contest, 2017.

By downloading this image, you agree to use the photo within the context that it was taken. You also agree to never use it for commercial purposes. The image always belongs to the original photographer and should be attributed to the photographer and Center for a Livable Future Food Policy Networks Photo Contest.