The policies that inform how cities purchase food provide critical opportunities to drive regional resilience and positively impact a region’s economic and environmental goals. To be effective, food policy plans require consideration of local conditions. What works for one city may not work for another. Production systems associated with generating positive environmental impacts are not automatically transferable to other locations; their impacts may vary depending on numerous factors, ranging from microclimates and soil types to transportation and distribution-related infrastructure.
As regions across the world leverage public food procurement to meet a combination of climate, health, community development, and economic goals, these policies and programs need to be aware of the trade-offs and co-benefits their policies and programs will create. Having more robust data about the economic, environmental, and social-cultural tradeoffs of the program can help bolster support to implement good food policies.
The City Food Policy Project brings together researchers, policy practitioners, and food systems stakeholders to:
- Understand the impacts, or potential tradeoffs, associated with city food policies
- Develop policy instruments that inform how cities weigh and implement values-based food policies
All of the files shared here are a in work-in-progress. We are in the middle of our 5-year project and will periodically update the GitHub with additional data and code as we continue to progress on our work. We have created an online book to document the project and will continue to update it throughout the project.
This website is (and will always be) free to use, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.