Collaborative and Inclusive Food Systems Planning

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Identify key issues and challenges associated with inclusive and grassroots planning for food-systems change in the Carolinas and within your own communities.
• Build collaborative and interdisciplinary relationships to create sustainable local-food systems and provide equitable access to healthy food choices.
• Identify strategies for facilitating discussion, building consensus, and identifying appropriate food-system intervention projects and policies within your own community.

MORE SESSION DETAILS

The development of a local food policy council and the integration of food-systems elements in county comprehensive plans are recommended strategies for promoting health equity in communities. South Carolina and North Carolina have made great strides in building capacity for and institutionalizing these approaches. However, challenges exist in ensuring that they are grassroots-driven and owned and not solely dictated by government officials, policy makers, and others in positions of power and privilege. An interdisciplinary panel will discuss approaches, real-life experiences, successes, and challenges of inclusive and grassroots planning for food-systems change (including farmer co-operatives, farm-to-institution efforts, farmers markets, and agricultural zoning) in the Carolinas. Attendees will then have a chance to present and discuss the challenges they have experienced within their own food-systems planning work to generate dilemmas for short-decision case scenarios. (The decision-case methodology has been used for education and training within a wide range of disciplines to help practitioners and community members determine recommended courses of action to address a problem.) The panelists will work with small groups to facilitate discussion on various strategies for addressing the challenges and dilemmas presented, with the outcome of ensuring inclusive and grassroots food-systems planning.