Long relegated to the domain of the market, food is increasingly becoming a subject of discussion for planning academics and practitioners.

In 2007, the nonprofit American Planning Association adopted a policy that encourages its members, 65 percent of whom work for state and local government agencies, to help build “stronger, sustainable and more self-reliant” local food systems.

In an effort to understand what this means for practicing planners, I attended the national American Planning Association conference in Las Vegas last April in the hope that the relevant
panel sessions could identify planning tools and models of “food system planning.”    

Up until recently, the closest the profession got to food systems was developing strategies for farmland preservation, which stemmed more from a desire to protect open space than from an interest in preserving local food production.

The Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning offers several reasons for why planners have been absent from the food system agenda:

1.    a view that the food system — representing the flow of products from production; through-processing, distribution, consumption, and the management of wastes, and associated processes — only indirectly touches on the built environment, a principal; focus of planning's interest;

2.    a sense that the food system isn't broken, so why fix it;

3.    a perception that the food system meets neither of two important conditions under; which planners act — i.e., dealing with public goods like air and water; and planning; for services and facilities in which the private sector is unwilling to invest, such as; public transit, sewers, highways and parks.

These reasons make several assumptions about food that are highly contentious.

First, it treats all food as an imported commodity that is only threatened by urban growth (this is the farmland preservation bit).

Second, the escalating obesity and diabetes rates in this country suggest that even if your food system isn’t broken, it needs work.

Third, bad-for-you water is unacceptable but bad-for-you food is.

Despite these reasons, 70 percent of surveyed planners say food, community and regional food system issues should be a significant planning issue, while only 30 percent said they’re involved in community and regional food system issues. This suggests that planners see themselves as having a supportive role rather than a directive role in community and regional food system issues.

I suspect that many planners working to improve the food system may not even know it.

The following food system planning activities are also examples of farmland preservation, economic development and community development initiatives. 

Whether they like it or not, food is on the agenda.  

Building Food System Goals into a Comprehensive Plan

Alex Hinds, the Director for the Marin County Community Development Agency, talked about how the Marin County Sustainability Program , launched in 1999, establishes a progressive model for incorporating sustainable planning into all aspects of the community’s long-term growth including habitat restoration, locally provided food supplies, green building, green business and energy, and affordable housing.

The 2007 update to the plan highlights the following agriculture and food achievements:

·    The Marin County Agricultural Commissioner’s office established the first local government organic certification agency in the United States. Since 2000, Marin Organic Certified Agriculture (MOCA) has certified 30 local producers and processors to meet USDA National Organic Program standards. This program represents an efficient and effective public agency agricultural cooperative collaboration. The Marin County Agricultural Commissioner’s office has also put into place the state’s first certification for grass-fed livestock.

·    The Marin Agricultural Land Trust was the first private nonprofit in the nation created specifically to protect agricultural land. Since 1988 MALT has acquired conservation easements on 49 ranches covering about 33,000 acres (roughly one-fourth of the private agricultural land in Marin). Many of these were purchased with the $15 million originally allocated by State Proposition 70, which was fully expended by 2000. MALT easements are now purchased with a combination of private contributions, grants, and 10% of County Open Space District uncommitted acquisition funds (about $35,000 annually).

·    The production of milk, beef, fruit, nuts, vegetables, and aquaculture have all made a comeback over the past fifty years, however low profit margins make agriculture a difficult business as do the threats of residential demand.

The desired outcomes of the 2007 update stress the preservation of agricultural lands and resources, improve agricultural viability, and increase community food security.

According to the Plan, these goals can be accomplished through a wide variety of measures including minimum lot size zoning, preventing conversion to non-agricultural production, and prohibiting uses that are incompatible with long-term agricultural production; enhancing the viability of farms, ranches, and agricultural industries; increasing the diversity of locally produced foods to give residents greater access to a healthy, and a nutritionally adequate diet.  

Indicators of the Plan’s success include acres preserved with agricultural easements; acres of land farmed organically; servings of fruit and vegetables served to children; reduced rates of obesity; number of restaurants and number of locally produced value-added products.

Marin County’s Comprehensive Plan won the 2008 National Planning Excellence Award for Implementation, and is recognized as a progressive model for incorporating sustainable planning into all aspects of the community’s long-term growth including habitat restoration, locally provided food supplies, green building, green business and energy, and affordable housing.  

Creating Incentives for Supermarkets and to Locate in Underserved Areas

Food deserts are urban districts with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet, but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.

The presence of food deserts was brought to Illinois public attention when Mari Gallagher, then a consultant for the LaSalle Bank study, found that African American’s living in “food deserts” on Chicago’s South and West Side, are more likely to die prematurely from diabetes, cancer and other ailments.

Part of the problem is that there aren’t enough supermarkets in the poorer parts of the city, and this is exactly what The Food Trust and its partners worked to overcome. 

The Food Trust is a nonprofit organization working to increase community food security in the Mid-Atlantic region. In 2001 The Food Trust published research that found Philadelphia has the second-lowest number of supermarkets per capita of any major city in the nation, and that this lack of access to supermarkets disproportionately impacts lower-income populations.

These findings sparked the Food Marketing Task Force. It found that infrastructure costs and credit needs of urban supermarkets are often higher and unmet by conventional financial institutions.

To overcome these barriers to supermarket development in the city, the Food Trust, the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition (GPUAC), The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania formed a public-private partnership to support the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFI), an innovative program that provides grants and low-interest loans to qualified food retail enterprises for predevelopment costs including land acquisition, equipment, construction and workforce development.

To date, FFI has committed resources to 52 supermarket projects in Philadelphia, Pittsburg and other cities and towns in Pennsylvania.

Community Food Assessments help Identify Community Food Assets and Issues

Professor Kameshwari Pothukuchi of Wayne State University discussed Community Food Assessment’s (CFAs) as a useful tool for planners to identify their community food assets and issues.

Planning-related CFAs have the advantage of examining multiple geographic scales and are better able to use GIS to map the location of current or potential food resources and population groups. They also provide a greater focus on multiple government functions and are better able us conduct focus groups with people of differing economic and demographic backgrounds.

The assessment itself requires the input of community stakeholders and extensive data collection.

The USDA Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit outlines the six components of the assessment as: profiling general community characteristics and community food resources, assessing household food security, food resource accessibility, food availability and affordability, and community food production resources.

The CFA can answer questions regarding the needs of low-income residents, the sustainability of the food system and the community as a solution to food system problems.

Food Systems Planning, an Emerging Field?

In Las Vegas I met many planners interested in working towards a healthier and more sustainable food system. But I suspect that implementing changes in the way planners do planning will take time, and the willingness to learn from those already invested in the field. If such a specialty were to exist, Food Systems Planning would have to take into account the ways in which food impacts our health, economy and how we build communities.

This is a complex task, but the approaches and tools are numerous and the work is already begun.