Policy Life Cycle for Community Food Project (CFP) USDA-CSREES

How did the need rise to level of policy?

What level(s)

Who was the principle advocate?

What was the process?

Who were CFP champions?

Who were the constituents at the grassroots?

Who were the grasstop advocates?

What obstacles or opposition was there?

Community Based Food Systems

USDA/NIFA implements

CFP

Farm Bill Authorization

Community Food Projects policy cycle

Monitoring &EvaluationCFP policy formation

Annual grants to support

innovations

Need for resources to

support community innovation

CFP and the policy cycle

From need to policy

1994 Community Food Security Coalition formed and focused on need

for resources to plan and develop community based food systems.

During run up to1996 Farm Bill, need for CFP presented as a policy priority

with support of consumer and environmental groups.

CFP Policy FormationPolicy Background Papers:

www.foodsecurity.org/policy.html1993: Seeds of Change: Strategies for Food Security for the Inner City

2002:The Healthy Farms, Food and Communities Act: Policy Initiatives for the 2002 Farm Bill And the First Decade of the 21st Century

2007: Healthy Food Healthy Communities: A Decade of Community Food Projects in Action

The program:

* Supports the development of community food projects designed

to meet the food needs of low-income people;

* Seeks to increase the self-reliance of communities in

providing for their own needs;

* Promotes comprehensive responses to local food, farm, and

nutrition issues;

* Fosters efforts to meet specific state, local, or neighborhood food and agriculture needs for infrastructure improvement and development;

* Plans for long-term solutions, or the creation of innovative marketing activities that mutually benefit agricultural producers and low-income consumers.

Champions on the Hill

Members of Congress on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees

Marker Bills

Committee Bill, Title IV

Members of Congress in strategic districts, states, leadership, etc

CFP constituents and stakeholders

•Examples of successful community projects or expressions of need for CFP $

•Target ag committee states and districts

•Supporters in CSA, organic, sustainable ag, anti-hunger, enviro, health etc.

Grassroots and Grasstops•Def of grasstops: people or organizations who have enough pull with an elected official to get a commitment to “stick”

•From NY: 2007 grasstops included Rangels son-in-law, Harlem based CFP grantee, National Urban League health expert in NY, etc.

Obstacles or opposition?• Being too small to matter (less than 100 million is to small to see in a 300 billion bill)

• Being too cross-cutting (eg farmer and consumer, rural and urban > does not fit existing boxes)

• Anti-hunger focus on national food safety nets: Food Stamps, TEFAP, WIC and not on any distractions…

From mandate to program

• Engagement from rulemaking to drafting the Request for Proposal (RFP)

• establishing the outreach and technical assistance role for civil society

• evaluation and monitoring of the quality of service to communities

The Cycle goes on and on…• 1996 initial authorization 2.5 m grants up to $250G for 3 years

• 2002 reauthorization 5 m and add planning and TA - grants up to $300G for 3 years and more TA

• 2008 reauthorization 5 m and link to other new programs with emphasis on scaling up success

Best “policy practices”• Collaborative outreach, evaluation support and technical assistance for grantees

• Practitioner peer review in CFP application process

• Inclusion of 2 or more sectors required to apply

• Solutions benefit farmers and low income consumers

Thesis: good policy links good practice across programs

• 2004: CFP policy practices applied to Farm to Cafeteria policy

• 2007-8 CFP policy practice applied to the “healthy food policy package in the Farm Bill.

• NY, WA, CA and other states pick up on good policy practices

Good policy needs good advocates from the grassroots