In response to an increasing global interest in food sustainability, and to the lack of all-inclusive, tangible, local governmental initiatives in the field, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer has released “FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System.” The first of its kind, it serves as the most comprehensive effort to unify and reform New York City’s policies regarding the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food.
A product of the NYC Food and Climate Summit, held at NYU in December in partnership with the non-profit Just Food, the report reflects the discussions and debates that transpired between agricultural, nutritional, environmental, and social experts over 29 “breakout” sessions. By focusing on the creation of new markets, urban agriculture, and food education, production, and distribution, I believe the report will mark a watershed moment in our movement.
The report addresses many of the issues that Borough President Stringer has been working on since the very beginning of his administration in 2006. In 2007, he launched Go Green, an initiative designed to help communities address local environmental issues and provide them with a means by which to solve them. Under this program, he helped restructure East Harlem’s food system, and eventually released “The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook,” filled with healthy recipes provided by members of the community. The program’s success, lead to its expansion into Washington Heights, Inwood, and the Lower East Side. In addition to championing community based changes, he vocalized his interest in creating vertical farms in Manhattan, rallied in support of reducing pollution caused by food being imported into the city, created a “Foodstat” system to measure communities’ unhealthy retail food environments, and encouraged the creation of an NYC food shed.
“By devoting serious attention to our food system, city government can in one stroke improve public health, sustainability, and job creation,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. “In recent years, there’s been growing interest in this issue, but we’re still left with a grab bag of disjointed, independent initiatives. Now, with the help of hundreds of dedicated New Yorkers, the document we’re releasing today will for the first time present a single, comprehensive vision for food policy in this city.”
Many people have been supporting the Manhattan Borough President’s office’s work on food policy since a Steering Committee created to focus on the issue first met in September 2008 at Columbia University, a period of 18 months. Others joined the effort along the way. All have played an important role in elevating food policy to a much higher place on city government’s agenda than it has previously occupied.
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