City Food Policy Advisors Update at Wholesome Wave’s Second Annual New York City Convening

By Gabrielle Blavatsky

 
City food policy advisors and colleagues others interested in food system change gathered in New York City at a meeting convened by Wholesome Wave. Six advisers spent two days sharing innovations and developing policy goals for the Farm Bill.

Mayors’ food policy advisers and directors from New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Louisville, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon were joined by Just Food, Grow NYC, senior staff from Wholesome Wave, and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

Building on the success of last year’s convening, the city food policy advisors reviewed options for leveraging the collective strength of mayors whose constituencies include the majority of clients receiving federal nutrition assistance. And those SNAP, WIC and TEFAP programs constitute substantial portion of federal spending on nutrition authorized in the Farm Bill. They discussed the development of policy recommendations for their mayors, and talked about recommendations on city food policies for the 2012 Mayor’s Conference January 18-20 in Washington DC.

The policies they discussed revolved around the central themes that emerged during the convening – food and farm policy as tool to alleviate hunger, to improve health, and as an economic driver for jobs and the local economy.