Last night, I was looking more into Asheville City Councilman Gordon Smith’s ideas for creating a municipal Food Policy and Food Policy Council. At council’s retreat, Smith advocated for availing under-utilized city land for urban gardens and farmland, procuring USDA loans for food deserts (locations of concentrated food-insecure populations), and promotion of the Ag Extension’s goal of appropriating 10% of government budgets toward food-involved* activities.
Food Policy is not Smith’s brainchild. You could probably guess with your eyes closed that the concept originated with the UN. With all due apologies to the educated masses, Wikipedia introduces the topic with the following:
Food policy is an area of public policy concerning the production, distribution, and consumption of food. The policy consists of setting goals for food production, processing, marketing, availability, access, utilization and consumption, and describes the processes for achieving these goals. Food policy can be on any level, from local to global, and by a government agency, business, or organization. In addition, food policy involves schools, regulations, and eligibility standards for food assistance programs; and it involves health and safety, food labeling, and even the qualifications of a product to be considered organic.
*As I child, I tried to communicate with long-haired guys by flashing peace signs. Now, I am trying to communicate with the politically-astute by spewing syntactically idiotic hyphenations.
