I spent a day volunteering at the SF Food Bank over the holidays and spending hours sorting through canned goods really got me thinking. What will it will take to stop hunger and what it will take to transform our current food system so that it's good clean and fair?

In order to build a meaningful and sustainable food system, we need resources, ideas, learned lessons and creativity. So, as a kick-off to 2010, I've compiled a list of some studies, documents, interesting projects, and other ideas I hope will inspire next steps in the evolution and transformation of our current food landscape.

Lessons learned Food Policy Councils:

Thanks to a collaboration between Oakland's Food First and the Community Food Security Coalition, Alethea Harper, Annie Shattuck, Eric Holt-Giménez, Alison Alkon and Frances Lambrick wrote Food Policy Councils: Lessons Learned, which you can download, for free, here.

The first Food Policy Council was established in Knoxville, TN in 1982 and since then councils have had their victories and defeats. The authors asked, "What lessons can be taken from North America's nearly three-decade experiments with Food Policy Councils?" They based their assessment on "an extensive literature review of Food Policy Councils, and testimony from 48 interviews with the people most involved" with them.

They also answer some basic questions like: "What do they do? How do they work? How are they organized and funded? How effective are they? What have been their successes, and what challenges do they face?"

Some snippets of their findings include: "Food policy councils have the potential to democratize the food system." Most councils "spend first 3-4 years getting to know the local food system" and most have "worked towards getting electronic benefits transfer machines (food stamps) into farmers markets, expanding the number of city or local farmers markets, changing the regulations for school food purchasing and piloting farm to school programs."

Wondering why some have failed, they discovered the following "red flags" to watch out for:
• Dependence on one strong personality, organization, or political figure
• Lack of funding
• "Single-issue" focus
• Over-commitment to specific programs

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