Nearly 100 community members came to Madison College for the launch of the Dane County Food Action Plan on Feb. 27.
The new group is a conjunctive effort between REAP Food Group, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dane County Extension, Dane County Food Council. Madison Food Policy Council, Dane County Food Collective, Wisconsin Food Systems, Mosicas and Public Health Madison and Dane County. The project aims to build a more equitable, healthy, and resilient food system in Dane County through strategic policy recommendations and community collaboration.
Efforts are grant-funded through Dane County and the United States Department of Agriculture. Funding has not been halted yet with DOGE’s large cutbacks on federal funding.
Dane County Food Action Plan has been in the works for around three years when its founder Bill Warner noticed the high segmentation of food council efforts. Warner, owner of Snug Haven Farm and a Dane County Food Council member, wanted to form a more focused group.
The goal of the group is to drive policy, resources, relationships and infrastructure to influence Dane County’s food systems. It wants to change the profit-focused, commodity farming-based model into a more sustainable and equitable model to ensure access to food.
“It’s about transforming our food system,” said Noah Bloedorn, food plan manager at REAP Food Group. “What we’re trying to do here is create that blueprint of getting us from where we currently are to where we want to be on a much more sustainable local food system, and what that looks like.”
(Photo by Omar Waheed.)
To accomplish transforming our food system, Dane County Food Action Plan looks for community input.
An interactive activity was held at the launch where attendees gave their insights into the current status of food waste management, assets, infrastructure, retail, economic development, production and emergency services.
Feedback raised ranged from land access, closing gaps, collaboration with local food producers, language, diversifying volunteer bases, access to affordable food, healthy options, subsidies, wages and many more topics central to food systems.
“Part of our work in the consumer process is really an engagement process to actually really connect with all of you and the constituencies that you represent,” said Abha Thakkar, owner of Mosaic. “We want to hear from you, obviously, in informing this plan, but we also want to share the various ways in which we can share our resources with you so that you can be a part of getting the feedback we need.”
Dane County Food Action Plan has resources available for the community. It has applications for people to create their own community engagement opportunities to reach people to expand its overall feedback gathering. It will provide $500-1,500 to cover expenses; it asks that it include four specific questions pertinent to its qualitative data gathering to attendees.
Questions are:
- What kind of foods do you want to have access to?
- What in your life has shaped what you eat?
- What challenges do you face when it comes to food?
- What issues related to food do you care about?
Additional questions will be asked based on the sector represented such as farmers or entrepreneurs. There is currently enough funding available for around 30-40 community engagement sessions with an ideal minimum target of 20 for the Dane County Food Action Plan. Engagement sessions are aimed for now through August.
Interest in hosting food plan engagement sessions can be directed towards Bloedorn via email: [email protected].
Picking up where others left off
Efforts from data gathering will help the Dane County Food Action Plan inform the next steps in its work. Regardless of what feedback looks like, its bottom line is to push the envelope on seemingly left-behind half efforts Dane County has pushed in the past.
Thakkar’s prime example of left-behind efforts is Dane County Board’s 2012 resolution where it declared food is a human right, The Cap Times reported.
The culmination of efforts led to the Dane County Food Council to write an annual report on access to food, employment and new initiatives to use land for food production and economic development. Few hard actions to bring the declaration to fruition have been implemented.
“There’s a disconnect between the world as it is and the world as it should be,” Thakkar said. “What does a world look like where food is a human right? It’s a multi-sector, interdisciplinary commitment. It has to do with transportation and land use and economic development and education, and really it affects housing patterns. It affects all of our different investments.”
A shift is needed, Thakkar and Bloedorn said. The Dane County Food Action Plan wants to make a “rubric” for policymakers to weigh critical values of community needs in food planning — which the data gathered will help create.
“The model already exists. Food planning is not new, it’s been done at other places,” Bloedorn said. “It’s never been done here before, but we can look to cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. The Northeast has a lot of great examples, as well. Something that is emerging there is an idea called good food purchasing policy and it allows communities their different values.”
An example, one that Bloedorn nodded to, is Chicago’s The Good Food Purchasing Initiative of Metro Chicago (GFPI). The initiative was created in 2017 with $100 million leveraged by the City of Chicago and Cook County to procure food procurement to create a healthier, more equitable food system. Chicago was the second city, after Los Angeles, to create a good food purchasing plan and Cook County was the third local government to approve the type of resolution.
The initiative pushed to support family-owned small, medium and large farms — within 250 miles for produce and 500 miles for meat, eggs and dairy of the metro — along with hyper-local farms and food businesses owned by marginalized groups.
Dane County Food Action Plan currently is looking for residents to take its Consumer Food Survey. The survey consists of 21 questions to learn more about Dane County residents’ hopes related to health and local foods.
