October 2024

Project Update

Early fall has been incredibly busy for the City Food Policy Project (CFPP) Team. From wrapping up our beef supply chain interviews to finalizing a report on the legal considerations that impact values-based procurement in NYC (see chart below*), the foundational work of information gathering continues while the Modelling Team prepares to dive into the data and begin to assess the economic and environmental tradeoffs associated with the implementation of New York City’s food policy priorities, which are described in the image below.

Potential Food Policy Actions Chart

List of laws/policies and their applicability to given policy actions

Climate Week in New York City was also a rather engaged time for the team. We hosted our second annual in-person All Team meeting with colleagues coming together from Colorado, North Carolina, California, Denmark, and throughout New York. Each team member reported on their past year’s findings, laying out the content that will guide the next two years of work. This included our MOFP partners detailing the various mechanisms through which NYC Agencies purchase food, speaking to the incredible complexity of providing over one million daily meals. No two agencies are alike, the system is massive, food distribution operates on the smallest margins, and as depicted by the legal analysis above, numerous factors determine what is permissible; accordingly, there is no simple approach to values-based procurement. The chart below visually portrays this lack of unity across city agencies, highlighting the different types of contracts that are utilized, from bid-type, to length, and in what form the food arrives.

Key Agency Procurement Factors Chart

The following day, the City Food Policy Project hosted three panels featuring government officials, development organizations, advocates, and researchers doing pioneering work exploring what cities are doing to support values-based food procurement, as well as the impacts of these strategies. We were joined by practitioners from as far away as Kenya, Italy, and Brazil, and brought together NY City and State officials thinking across geography how procurement can drive improved environmental and economic outcomes for urban and rural communities throughout the region. To learn more about the day’s event, follow this link.

Looking Beyond New York

As part of its ongoing communications CFPP highlights global efforts and research around values-based procurement and urban-rural linkages. Here is the FAO webpage where readers can find all its publications related to school food and nutrition, including an overview of the Purchase from Africans to Africa (PAA Africa) project. The project was a partnership among the Brazilian government, FAO, WFP and the UK and supported 5 African countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Niger and Senegal) to design and implement local (school) food procurement from smallholder farmers based on the Brazilian model. A second phase was implemented also in Ethiopia and Senegal.

Where to Find Us

In the coming months the CFPP Team will be sharing its work and participating in conversations that address values-based procurement, the role of cities and regions in stewarding biodiversity, as well as the relationship between urban-rural linkages and land tenure.

 

In our next What’s New, CFPP will report back from those convenings and share its early findings about New York State’s leafy green supply chain.

Thanks to our funders/partners:

The Rockefeller Foundation
Logo for Foundation For Food & Argricultural Research
Food Systems Institute Colorado State University
Cornell University Logo
Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming
NY Farm Viability Institute