In today’s Good Eating section we serve up a report on what food policy changes local foodies and activists would like to see from the new Obama administration. We didn’t have space to run all their ideas, but we do have space on the Stew. So for all of you food policy wonks and especially for readers in the Obama administration, here is a complete list. Please feel free to contribute your suggestions, too.

Jim Slama, founder and president of FamilyFarmed.org:

Make local foods part of the green jobs initiative: “The administration is committed to creating new green jobs. Local food production is a tremendous opportunity to develop them. For example, people in Illinois spend nearly $50 billion on food annually. If we could grow and process 20 percent more of this locally, it would add $10 billion in new food sales for Illinois producers each year. This would create thousands of new jobs-in farming, processing, local food system infrastructure and farmers markets-in rural and urban areas and add tremendous economic growth.

Grow new farmers: “The average age of U.S. farmers is 55 and getting older. Programs to support young people to move into farming would help us grow more food, especially for local consumption. It will also help give older farmers the opportunity to sell or lease their land to a new generation of growers.

Help create new farmers markets. “There is tremendous demand for farmers markets throughout the country. In the past decade in Illinois the number of markets has increased from less than 100 to over 270 last year. Programs to encourage new farmers markets would give consumers more access to fresh local food and give farmers more places to sell their products.”

Invest in local foods infrastructure. “In order to maximize the economic opportunity with local foods, we need more infrastructure. For example Illinois has few vegetable packing and shipping centers, which are key to aggregating product from local producers and selling it to wholesale buyers. Investment in key infrastructure will allow the local food movement to go to the next level.

Use public land for local food production. “The federal government is the largest landholder in the country. Let’s devote some public land to producing local food. This could be an affordable way to help newer farmers ramp up the production of local food while promoting the highest and best use of the land.”

Terra Brockman, a farmer and founder of The Land Connection:

Encourage new farmers: “Less than 1 million people list farming as their primary occupation. … In addition, the average age of these few million farmers is about 60.

“When you look at the number of under-30 farmers and the number of over-60 farmers, you can see where this is heading. We need policies to encourage new young farmers to start farming. If we had a large initiative in this direction, it would be the gift that keeps on giving, as it would improve our rural communities’ economic development while providing more nutritious foods, which will reduce health-care costs.”

Carrie Nahabedian, executive chef at Naha restaurant:

More truth in labeling “When there is a plastic bottle that is only supposed to be used once because of the chemicals used to make it, it should say that. And the onus for doing it should be on the bottle manufacturer, so when it gets to someone like Hi-C, it’s all already on there.

“I want to see better food safety for children’s products. I want to see stricter guidelines for organic, natural and sustainable labeling. I think it is too vague and it confuses the consumer. Why not specify what ‘grass-fed,’ or ‘cornfed’ or ‘natural’ means?

“I want to see stricter regulations on selling and using sustainable seafood.”

Rochelle Davis, founding executive director of the Healthy Schools Campaign:

Adequately fund school food programs: “This includes increasing the federal reimbursement rate to $3.50 for lunch [it currently is $2.59], providing grants to schools for kitchen facilities that allow the preparation of healthful meals, grants for training of school-food workers, a commodity food program that supports health, and support for farm-to-school programs that bring the freshest, healthiest produce to schools.

“A school food program that is based on nutritional standards consistent with the latest nutrition science and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This includes consistent health-promoting standards for the school meals served to students along with standards for other food offered in the school environment, such as a la carte items in the cafeteria and food that students purchase from vending machines or school stores.

“Increased resources to schools for programs that teach children about healthy eating. This includes funding for school wellness teams, school gardening, and cooking programs.”

Will Allen, CEO of Growing Power:

Expand urban farming: “We want to ask the city and state and nation to allocate money [from the stimulus package] to develop urban agriculture. We need to change the current food system. Industrial agriculture has not solved our food problems. We have more hunger and food-borne disease than ever before in our country.

“We need to pay attention to growing food locally to feed the community and developing local food systems that include urban farms where we can intensively grow foods for people to eat instead of huge fields of corn and soybeans.

“We need about 50 million new folks growing food whether in their backlots or side gardens or community farms to really change the food system. We need to start training children and getting them in touch with the earth and growing early. We should start in kindergarten and have it be part of their education all the way through high school so children can understand where food comes from.

“We need to grow new soil and restore the earth. Our lands are contaminated in the rural areas but also in the urban areas. We need to take the waste we are putting in the landfill and put that back into mother earth so we can grow food in Chicago in the existing soils.

“We need to look at the land in our cities. Some cities, like Milwaukee, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Flint, have vacant land and we can produce locally grown food there. In other cities where there is not as much space you can do horizontal farming. We see that 84 percent of the people say they want locally produced food and so this is a great opportunity to engage the new administration. From what I can see [President Obama] values organic food and he believes in health and fitness and I think it’s a great opportunity to move the country in this direction.”