Long Beach Fresh is excited to announce that we recently became the 23rd official Food Policy Council in California after ratifying the California Food Policy Council‘s “Founding Document” and dispatching Co-Coordinator Tony Damico to a statewide meeting of Food Policy Councils to share expertise and discuss issues.
The Founding Document, created in 2012 is an incredible description of why we are coming together, and the type of world we hope to build. It states: for the health and well-being of our communities, local groups of food stakeholders shall form and help develop policies and models that produce healthy, safe, fair, humane and abundant food that doesn’t harm people or the environment.
“The California Food Policy Council’s Founding Document is a beautiful declaration that includes a lot of the ideas and values the Long Beach food community is working toward!,” said LB Fresh Co-Founder, Ryan Smolar.
CAFPC 10 Guiding Principles
These 10 principles (summarized below) guide the CAFPC to work collectively to create a healthy, vibrant, equitable and sustainable food system:
- Access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food is a human right
- Reduce the health inequities and help create a more equitable food system
- Make the healthiest choice the easiest choice
- Protect and restore the environment
- Support a diverse food and agriculture economy
- Recognize that a fair food system requires functional immigration and labor policies
- Recognize the vital role of education
- Value our farmland and fisheries and farmers and fisherfolk and ranchers
- Recognize the need to reform global policies that remove barriers to a healthy, equitable food system
- Recognize the power of all food stakeholders participating and collaborating
Share Your Expertise
The CAFPC has asked us to share our expertise with other food policy councils. If you have an expertise in anything from climate change to soil testing, please check out this Expertise Share document and let us know if you want to make your expertise available to other food policy councils.
More about the California Food Policy Council
The California Food Policy Council (known as Roots of Change) has been working to develop and support a collaboration of food system stakeholders since 1999. Through working together, they envision a resulting healthy and affordable system that supports the many.
Roots of Change is a program of the Public Health Institute, a fiscal sponsor providing tax-exempt 501(c) (3) status and administrative and financial services for innovative environmental projects.
Read more on the Roots of Change website.