Environmentally friendly food practices are all the rage these days – from organic farming at the White House to cooking manure to harness energy from methane gases – but is there a need to codify it into government policy?

Across the country, local government officials are proposing “green food resolutions” – partially at the behest of a campaign run by Farm Sanctuary, a farm animal protection organization.

This week, Chicago became the first city to pass a green food resolution. Although the resolution is nonbinding, it urges the city to make healthy, locally grown food more available to Chicago residents.

A similar bill calling for the creation of a FoodprintNYC – a play on the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC – has been proposed by Bill de Blasio, a Brooklyn councilman who is running for public advocate. The bill would encourage the city’s various agencies to coordinate and establish climate-friendly food policies and programs, as well as a public awareness campaign about the health and environmental impact of food. It draws heavily from recommendations in a report, “Food in the Public Interest,” [pdf] by the office of the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer.