Summer 2009 News & Views
Building Neighborhood Food Systems in the East Bay:
The Oakland Food Policy Council gets off to a good start
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While the Oakland Food Policy Council (OFPC) was established 2008, its seeds were sown in 2005 when the Oakland Mayor’s Office of Sustainability commissioned a study on the Oakland food system. The report, the Food Systems Assessment for Oakland, CA, made several innovative recommendations. Among them was a recommendation to create a food policy council to review the food system from production through waste management, and develop ideas to make the food system equitable and sustainable.
In December 2006, the Oakland City Council Life Enrichment Committee unanimously passed a resolution to allocate start-up funding for the OFPC. Throughout 2007 and early 2008 a dedicated group of Oakland citizens,
organizations, and City of Oakland Department of Human Services staff worked to identify a home for the OFPC and, in May 2008, Food First was selected to incubate the council. In its first year the fledgling council has developed considerably. Between May and October of 2008 Food
First set the scene for the council, securing funding and putting other basic systems in place, so that when the OFPC Coordinator Alethea Harper started work in October, she was able to dive right in to the development
of the council.
