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Planning for Food Access and Community-Based Food Systems: A National Scan and Evaluation of Local Comprehensive and Sustainability Plans

Publisher: American Planning Association

Author(s): Hodgson, Kimberley

Published Date: 2012

Document Type: Report

Format: Electronic

Free of Cost: Yes

This report provides an overview of results from a multi-year study that identified and evaluated how local comprehensive and sustainability plans are supporting food related goals and policies. The report identifies 105 plans that explicitly address food access and other aspects of the food system; analyzes how a subset of these plans support and advance healthy, sustainable food systems; identifies common themes and innovative features for implementing plan policies and achieving plan goals; offers sample plan language of food systems related vision statements, goals, policies, action items and implementation mechanisms; and provides data collection and assessment tools to monitor and evaluate changes in the local food system over time.

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Growing Food Connections Topic(s): community food connections, community food production, community food security

Main Food Topics: agriculture, agriculture preservation, food access, food assistance, food availability, food distribution, food processing, food procurement, food production, food retail, food security, food system

Sub Food Topics: Affordability, agricultural practices, animals, buy local, commercial kitchen, community garden, community kitchen, corner store or bodega, farm, farm to school, farmers market, fast-food, food bank, food infrastructure, food pantry, food stamps, grocery store, liquor store, low-income, mobile market, SNAP, supermarket, underserved population(s), value-added, vulnerable population(s), WIC

Public Policy Topics: Non-binding policies, Physical projects, Plans, Programs, Public investment, Regulations/laws

Geographic Scale: County, Municipality, Suburban, Urban

Addresses food security needs of underserved populations: Yes