The time has come for Asheville to ramp up food production on city land, support regional farmers in meaningful ways and empower residents to grow more food in neighborhoods throughout the city.
In 2013, City Council passed a Food Policy Action Plan. While some notable progress has been made due to the work of the city’s Office of Sustainability and its commitment to partnerships, overall, the accomplishments have been few and the ambition limited.
On Nov. 28, City Council voted to adopt a revised Food Policy Action Plan, one that digs deeper and sets the stage for creative dialogue and innovative policy development to support a more robust food system in our region. The revised plan includes action items to ramp up food production and strengthen relationships with partners by drawing on and elevating community expertise and passion.
Prioritized inventory and assessment work will collect and analyze the myriad of resources already at play in this complex field in order to better understand existing efforts in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. With this deeper understanding, we can build a foundation for ambitious, metrics-based, collaborative initiative development in coming years.
As a progressive city with a “food destination” reputation, it is our responsibility to make an equitable food system a goal and to make food policy and programs a high priority across city departments. We do not expect the Food Policy Action Plan to be the solution; rather, the Food Policy Action Plan is a call to action for city government, an example for the county and an important commitment by the city of Asheville to take these issues on head-first in authentic partnership with the community. Time to dig in!
Sincerely,
— Kiera Bulan
Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council Coordinator
Black Mountain
‘Action plan’ sounds great , but we already have way more ‘food giveaway solutions’ in WNC than probably anywhere on the planet, so there’s that…then we citizens realize that ‘food policy’ is just NOT a function of our government at all, so why do we need to burden government with this ? we don’t.
Shelter is a far bigger problem in Asheville than food, nobody is starving to death in Asheville, but they freeze to death every year. Also voting rights depend on housing, especially for Mayor of Biltmore Forest!
People do go hungry in Chicago because they can’t afford to rent in Asheville where they can walk to free food! They freeze there too, and in Minneapolis! I would say Detroit but Detroit has housing to spare since it is shrinking.