REGIONAL FOOD ACCESS PROJECT

New! Food System Collaborative Website:

www.foodsystemcollaborative.org

The Sacramento Region Food System Collaborative (FSC) has a new website! Thanks to funding from Kaiser Permanente, at www.foodsystemcollaborative.org you’ll find the latest news, events, and resources related to the FSC, a local food system, and access to healthy foods for all people throughout the region.

Sacramento Region Food System Collaborative:
With funding from The California Endowment, Valley Vision is bringing together public, private, and nonprofit stakeholder groups in the 6-county Capital Region to inform and influence policy initiatives relevant to the regional food system. Relevant initiatives include those focused on:

food access and food security
land use planning
local food purchasing plans
rural economic development.

The Food System Collaborative (FSC) will support the integration of a regional food policy that prioritizes the elimination of health disparities and ensures sustainable food access to low income communities in regional and state planning efforts that have the potential to impact the regional food system. Examples of such efforts include RUCS and the Blueprint. By building strength through inclusiveness, and by virtue of access to local, regional, state, and federal policy makers, the FSC will improve access to healthy, culturally-appropriate food for all residents, support the viability of producers, and contribute to healthy community design outcomes that improve social and physical environments. The methodology and approach will be replicable to benefit other areas of California in similar need.

Phase I report
The first step in building a durable cohort is rooting it in research to explore what’s currently happening in the region in the realm of food access and security. Valley Vision conducted a series of stakeholder interviews during March and April 2009 to gain a better understanding of the current environment, including barriers to food access in underserved communities, present stakeholder activities and plans, and assessing the degree of coordination among different organizations across disciplines and political jurisdictions. The findings from these interviews are the subject of Food Access in the Sacramento Region: An Assessment of Access to Healthy Foods in Low-Income Communities in the Sacramento Region available to read on our Publications page.

The Food System Collaborative met on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 to review the Phase I report findings. A presentation summarizing the findings can be downloaded here. The SACOG update on the Rural-Urban Connection Strategy can be found here.

The second meeting of The Food System Collaborative, hosted on July 23, 2009, included an engaging presentation by Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty and continued discussion of the direction of the Collaborative. We are encouraged by the diverse representation, interest and commitment to improving our regional food system. For the framework developed by the group for this initiative moving forward, and other materials from this meeting, please see the below links:

Mark Winne’s Presentation
Food System Collaborative Framework
First Year Timeline
Priority and Focus Areas Survey Results
Stakeholder Diagram - This is a working draft, comments are welcome!

Contact:
For more information, contact Robyn Krock at (916) 325-1630 or robyn.krock@valleyvision.org .