Food Systems Planning

October 15, 2015

Overview

*The Status Quo

*The Right to Grow

*The Right to Access

*Local Food as Activism

“The relationship between food and cities is endlessly complex, but at one level is utterly simple. Without farmers and farming, cities would not exist”

-    Carolyn Steel in Agricultural Urbanism, 2010

How Food Shapes Cities

http://www.ted.com/talks/carolyn_steel_how_food_shapes_our_cities.html 

Food System

  • The path food travels from field to fork (and beyond!)
  • Chain of activities and processes related to the production, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food

Source: http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1204/what-s-wrong-with-our-food-system/transparency.jpg

Other Traditional Food System Issues

  • Leading cause of prime farmland loss is land development. 24 million acres of ag land lost since 1982. Size of Indiana and Rhode Island combined 
  • Building form and city code regulations lost relationship to food and even often exclude agriculture
  • Landscape and open space design largely ignore edible plants (https://fallingfruit.org/)

The Right to Grow

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/garden/gardeners-fight-with-neighbors-and-city-hall-over-their-lawns.html

Outlaw Gardens

  • Orlando cited the Helvenstons for violating section 60.207 of Orlando’s Land Development Code (failure to maintain ground cover on property) and set a deadline of Nov. 7, 2012 to comply

  • Ultimately, city lawyers decided Monday to drop the code-enforcement case because Orlando's zoning rules were too vague on gardens to prove the Helvenstons had done anything wrong.

  • In the meantime, planners were working on changes to the code that would specifically allow front-yard gardens but only if certain restrictions were met (screening, setbacks, height limitations, and maximum lot coverage %.)

The Right to Access

Food Deserts

Food Swamps

Food Security FTW

  • A condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice
  • At heart, an issue of sovereignty. The right to grow. The right to access. The right to exercise ecologically sustainable methods.

Community Food Systems as Solution?

  • Health benefits from local food, as well as healthcare cost benefits
  • Economic development and community empowerment through food
  • 100 mile diet often used as a local rule of thumb, but definitions of local are highly variable

Urban Gardens & Markets as Local System Building Blocks

  • Increasingly important approach to provide food in urban areas, especially at risk neighborhoods
  • 18,000+ urban gardens in the U.S. 
  • Farmers markets on the rise nationwide, but slowing in recent years (could be sign of maturing)
  • 8,268 farmers markets in U.S. (2014), up 180% since 2006
  • From 2007 to 2012, the number of food hubs increased 288 percent
  • Since 2006, number of school districts with farm-to-school programs rose 430%

Goals include reducing food miles and increasing accessibility

Often run as co-op model: Community Supported Ag (CSA)

The Planning Approach

  • Conduct Community Food Assessment
  • Explore connections and analyze impact of current planning regulations and code on local food system
  • Include food security in comprehensive plan goals
  • Engage stakeholders in active, collaborative food policy councils

Leon County's Approach

  • FSU DURP conducts regional food assessment
  • County organizes Food For Us summit, over 300 community stakeholders and citizens attend
  • Tallahassee Food Network forms, runs iGrow and Collards and Cornbread

Leon County Growing Green: 
http://www.growinggreen.org/Green-Topics/Sustainable-Food

DURP Food Assessment:
http://fpdl.coss.fsu.edu/Studios/Preliminary-Community-Food-Assessment
 

Leon County Approach Cont.

  • County establishes gardening program to apply for space and micro-grants to operate on public land. 14 gardens have opened so far
  • Launched Seed Library Program at local libraries
  • Currently drafting ordinance adjustments to allow more flexibility

Growing Green Local Resource Map: 
http://agsinter.leoncountyfl.gov/LeonGrowingGreen/index.html

More info: https://www.facebook.com/DURP-Garden-1542328939350327/

More info: http://www.downtownmarket.com/

More info: https://www.rhomarket.com/

More info: http://www.tallahasseefoodnetwork.org/#!collards/c1n3t

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