Toward a Community Impact Assessment for Food Policy Councils: Identifying Potential Impact Domains

Larissa Calancie,Holly Calhoun,Abbey Piner,Karen Webb,Natasha Frost,Anne Palmer,Kristen Cooksey-Stowers

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2018.083.001

Abstract

Food policy councils (FPCs) are collaboratives that work to strengthen food systems. Over 300 FPCs exist in the United States, Canada, and Tribal Nations. In 2015, we surveyed the types of initiatives FPCs undertook and identified food sector targets and domains of potential impact in an effort to inform comprehensive FPC impact assessments. FPCs (N=66) reported 317 policy, systems, and environmental initiatives. At least half of these were focused on food production, and many were focused on institutional food service and the food assistance sectors. Commercial food service, food processing, and food waste were less often the focus. Potential impacts of their initiatives were classified into six domains: supporting resilient food systems (235, 74%); increasing access to healthy foods (171, 54%); supporting economic development (115, 36%); promoting equity in the food system (94, 30%); promoting environmental sustainability (82, 26%); and increasing knowledge of or demand for healthy foods (27, 9%). Many initiatives were likely to impact multiple domains.

Highlights

Introduction and Literature ReviewFood policy councils (FPCs) are collaboratives that bring together representatives from across the food system in order to identify food system issues, coordinate programs, and inform policy (Harper, Shattuck, Holt-Giménez, Alkon, & Lambrick, 2009)
FPCs have the opportunity to work in all sectors of the food system to influence policies, systems, and environments in their communities that affect health, economic prosperity, equity, environmental sustainability, and resilience of the local food system (Nesheim et al, 2015)
There were many potential benefits of initiatives reported by FPCs, including resilience of the local food system, improving access to healthful foods, and contributing to local economic development

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and Literature ReviewFood policy councils (FPCs) are collaboratives that bring together representatives from across the food system in order to identify food system issues, coordinate programs, and inform policy (Harper, Shattuck, Holt-Giménez, Alkon, & Lambrick, 2009). They can be examined at many levels, from communities to global food systems (Godfray et al, 2010). In the United States and Canada, food systems’ structures can give rise to complex problems, including hunger, obesity, degradation of natural resources, and equity concerns (Neff, Palmer, McKenzie, & Lawrence, 2009). By soliciting community input and empowering members to champion food system issues, FPCs allow groups to practice “food democracy,” defined as “the idea that people can and should be actively participating in shaping the food system, rather than remaining passive spectators on the sidelines. Cross-sector collaborations, such as FPCs, have the potential to influence environments such that healthy foods are broadly available, affordable, and produced using methods that protect natural resources (Schiff, 2008)

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