The Food System

Over four million people live in Massachusetts, and every day each of us depends on a complex food system of farmers, processors, distributors and retailers to bring us the food we eat.  For a number of reasons—from combating global warming and reducing food miles to seeking safer, fresher and more nutritious food—consumers in the Commonwealth are turning to locally-grown foods.  We see it in the growing number of farmers markets and farm stands, in the oversubscribed Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, and on the menus of restaurants and school cafeterias.  And we see it in the communities around us—from urban garden plots and community farms to new and expanding farm businesses raising an increasingly diverse array of livestock and conventional and organic crops.

Yet in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, our food system faces challenges.  The Commonwealth continues to lose its most productive farmland, and the average age of its farmers continues to climb.  Rising farm input costs are reducing farm profits.  The laws affecting food, farms, and agricultural processing and marketing are implemented by multiple federal, state and local boards and agencies, creating a complex web of regulatory hurdles for large and small farms alike.  And too many of the Commonwealth’s citizens are food insecure, lacking access to nutritional foods at affordable prices which contributes to high rates of obesity and costly chronic diseases like diabetes.

Food Policy Councils are a growing trend in cities and states across the country.  A statewide Food Policy Council in Massachusetts could improve coordination among the many state agencies that regulate aspects of the Commonwealth’s food system, and find new ways to expand production, consumption and access to locally-grown foods.   A council would bring together stakeholders across the whole range of the food system to recommend ways to improve the state’s food system and protect the land on which our food is grown.  Among the activities that Food Policy Councils elsewhere are engaged:  

·      Exploring ways to increase school purchases of locally-grown, nutritious foods;

·      Developing strategies to increase livestock slaughter and processing capacity, to expand the availability of locally-grown meats;

·      Expanding farmers market nutrition programs, so people of all ages and income levels can have access to fresh, nutritious foods;

·      Enhancing the visibility of farm products by promoting agri-tourism and other on-farm activities;

·      Promoting urban and backyard gardens for the purpose of improving the health of citizens, making use of idle urban land, and lowering food costs.