City Council adopts first nutrition plan: Towards a future where food is a human right – News

Last Thursday, the City Council adopted the Austin-Travis County Food Plan, a first-of-its-kind roadmap for the city to combat food insecurity and halt the rapid loss of local farmland.

“Our city is at a crossroads. We have grown so much in such a short period of time,” said Nitza Cuevas, co-chair of the plan’s advisory committee. “We have a loss of farmers and farmland. Workers can’t afford to live here. People are hungry.”

In 2021, Winter Storm Uri left many Austin residents hungry. The city council then decided to develop a nutrition plan to create a more sustainable, equitable and resilient food system. The Food Plan takes an anti-racism stance with its goals of eliminating unequal access to food, preventing food waste and reducing Austin’s food insecurity rate, which stands at more than 14%. After three years of planning, the city is finally getting to work evaluating funding and putting local organizations at the forefront of implementing new food strategies.

“It’s a great and amazing feeling to see what our community is capable of when we come together and unify our intentions into something,” said Amanda Rohlich, food policy advisor in the Office of Sustainability. “This is truly a mosaic of collaborative efforts.”

On October 29, the Commissioners Court will also vote on whether to adopt the nutrition plan, making it a reality for both the city and county. However, funding for this five-year plan will not be secured until budget negotiations begin next March and conclude in October 2025.

In addition to the hundreds of volunteers on the Advisory Board, Community Food Ambassadors and specialized Issue Area Groups, more than 3,000 Austinites participated in the planning process through workshops and outreach events. The food plan outlines seven broad goals, including strengthening community food production, increasing access to nutritious food and improving the livelihoods of food workers. Each goal is accompanied by dozens of strategies and policy proposals that could lead to radical changes throughout the food cycle.

“Not only does it feel great, I think it’s a really good example that politics can work for people,” said Larry Franklin, a co-chair of the Community Advisory Committee.

The plan includes financial incentives for restaurants that pay a living wage and farms that use regenerative farming methods. It also proposes the creation of a local food assistance program similar to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but with broader eligibility requirements.

“There are a lot of people who are on the verge of needing assistance, or who desperately need assistance, but for one reason or another they can’t get SNAP,” Rohlich said. “It’s a terrible place and we need to make it better for our neighbors.”

“Workers can’t afford to live here. People are hungry.” – Nitza Cuevas, Co-Chair of the Austin-Travis County Food Plan Community Advisory Committee

Community Advisory Committee members wanted to put equity at the heart of the nutrition plan. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, 89% of farmers around Austin are white and 61% are male. While food insecurity in Austin is already higher than the national average, the food insecurity rate for the city’s Black population is higher, at an even more shocking 27%.

Franklin’s nonprofit Black Lives Veggies analyzes the intersection of food insecurity, incarceration, chronic disease and homelessness. He also builds community gardens and provides agricultural training to disadvantaged communities. Last year, Franklin received grants from the city to create green jobs and he started an internship program teaching Huston-Tillotson University students about sustainable hydroponic agriculture.

“I think food could be used as a small tool for economic mobility,” he said. “We can really solve problems through food.”

Now that his time in developing the nutrition plan is up, Franklin wants Black Lives Veggies to continue working with the city in the next phase. He hopes to get more grants so the nonprofit can implement strategies in the nutrition plan. However, Franklin worries that competition for funding could lead the city to partner with larger organizations instead.

“This thing is just as difficult to implement as it is to develop,” Franklin said. “I once again feel it is my responsibility to influence policy so that some of the smaller organizations that were involved in developing the nutrition plan can now reap the financial benefits of their thinking.”

While funding is still unclear, Rohlich assured that the city is committed to working with organizations large and small. She said they wanted to make sure this nutrition plan reached every edge of the community.

“What makes this plan special is how much community input it was,” Rohlich said. “It increases the collective intelligence of the entire community rather than just advancing one unit’s perspective.”