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Local Food Action Initiative
The Local Food Action Initiative is a series of actions meant to promote local and regional food sustainability and security. The intent is to improve our local food system and in doing so, advance the City of Seattle’s interrelated goals of race and social justice, environmental sustainability, economic development, and emergency preparedness.
The initiative is detailed in Resolution 31019. The resolution was passed by the Seattle City Council in April 2008. **
Benefits of the Initiative
- Increase support of local and regional agriculture and community gardens and make stronger connections between our rural and urban areas
- Improve public health by providing increased access to healthy, culturally appropriate, and locally and regionally grown foods, especially for lowincome households
- Reduce climate impacts of our food system
- Improve the security of our local food supply in the event that a major disaster were to occur
- Reduce negative environmental effects relating to the food system including minimizing energy use and reducing food waste
- Create local economic opportunities related to local food production, processing, distribution, and waste management
- Support strategies to connect major institutions, such as schools, hospitals, and jails, to locally grown food
- Build community through developing community gardens, promoting farmers’ markets, involving immigrants, and developing
A few examples of actions include:
Develop a City of Seattle Food Policy Action Plan which would identify policies, programs and opportunities to promote local food system sustainability and security.
Strengthen local farmer’s markets and market gardens by finding them permanent locations for existing farmer’s markets.
Identify additional locations and infrastructure for community gardens that would strengthen our community garden program and maximize accessibility to all neighborhoods and communities.
Support programs such as a Food Bank –Food Waste Recycling Project or an Urban Farmland Initiative that can assist in providing fresh food for food banks and meal programs.
Form a Regional Food Policy Council that can assist the City and the County in the long run with developing policies that contribute to our goals.
Background
Access to food is one of the most fundamental needs for a community, yet local government involvement in addressing and assuring access to food is often poorly addressed. An increased number of local municipalities is beginning to realize the impact that the US food system, characterized by heavy reliance on chemicals, increased processing of foods, long transportation times and inequitable access to fresh food, particularly for lowincome people, is having on local food security, hunger, emergency preparedness, climate protection and economic development.
The City of Seattle’s attention to our “food system” is spread across a number of departments without a unified strategic action agenda guiding our policies and projects. An adhoc City of Seattle Interdepartmental Team is working in cooperation with a new communitybased Acting Food Policy Council to address these issues and identify opportunities to strengthen our selfreliant food system as well as to begin developing an action agenda. The Local Food Action Initiative will establish goals, create a policy framework, and identify specific actions to strengthen Seattle’s food system sustainability and security.
Click here for more information about Resolution 31019.
For more information contact Council President Richard Conlin or Phyllis Shulman,
(206) 684-8805.
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