{"id":2865,"date":"2020-02-25T18:49:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/?p=2865"},"modified":"2020-02-25T18:49:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:49:28","slug":"new-york-city-council-takes-on-food-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/2020\/02\/25\/new-york-city-council-takes-on-food-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City Council Takes on Food Equity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Taisy Conk, Program Director<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Community Food Action is increasingly engaging in policy and advocacy issues that affect food justice in the Southwest Bronx. Our objective is to critically examine and impact the decisions made by institutions and elected officials. In 2019 we became inaugural partners of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyequityadvocates.org\/\">Equity Advocates<\/a>, who aims to bolster civic engagement of food nonprofits across New York. When the New York City Council, led by Speaker Corey Johnson, proposed a <a href=\"http:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/data\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/73\/2019\/08\/growing-food-equity-1.pdf\">\u201cGrowing Food Equity\u201d agenda<\/a> in August 2019, we were eager to influence the process.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2867\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2867\" style=\"width: 287px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2867\" src=\"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity-791x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"287\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity-791x1024.jpg 791w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity-768x994.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity-1187x1536.jpg 1187w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity-464x600.jpg 464w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/growing-food-equity.jpg 1275w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 287px) 100vw, 287px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2867\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In August 2019, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson released a \u201cGrowing Food Equity\u201d Agenda.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The City Council introduced in August eleven bills encompassing a range of food justice issues, from food access and school food to food governance and urban agriculture. Equity Advocates facilitated a discussion among their members and helped us understand the significance of each of the bills. After honing in on the seven bills that most closely relate to our expertise and community\u2019s needs, we submitted testimony at the September hearing. Then, in November, we met with City Council Member Vanessa Gibson, who was lead sponsor or co-sponsor on many of the bills. We expressed our support for the bills and also called for revisions. One request was to stipulate that relevant agencies consult with community organizations and engage community members.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, February 11<sup>th<\/sup>, NYC Council passed four bills and two resolutions from the Growing Food Equity Agenda. This legislation would:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Establish and codify the (Mayor\u2019s) Office of food policy\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/columbia.us8.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=ebbdc27a6417de82e9320e64d&amp;id=45789b0789&amp;e=f1748c99df\">1666-A)<\/a>;<\/li>\n<li>Develop a 10-year food policy plan focused on food justice, equity, and insecurity\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/columbia.us8.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=ebbdc27a6417de82e9320e64d&amp;id=baca84f80b&amp;e=f1748c99df\">1664-A<\/a>);<\/li>\n<li>provide SNAP participants with information on health bucks at farmers markets (<a href=\"https:\/\/columbia.us8.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=ebbdc27a6417de82e9320e64d&amp;id=d9f4f80d17&amp;e=f1748c99df\">1650-A<\/a>);<\/li>\n<li>and generate a plan to identify and enroll eligible senior in SNAP\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/columbia.us8.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=ebbdc27a6417de82e9320e64d&amp;id=c8aeb403d9&amp;e=f1748c99df\">1659-A<\/a><strong>).\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We were pleased to see some of our suggested revisions reflected in the final bills. We look forward to seeing more bills introduced in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>We express our appreciation to New York City Council, and particularly our own Council Member Gibson, for championing food equity as a city policy issue. We call on Mayor DeBlasio to promptly pass these bills. We look forward to seeing the legislation\u2019s impact on our community and on all New Yorkers. We commit to continuing our engagement and bringing our participants into future advocacy efforts.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2868\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2868\" style=\"width: 505px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2868\" src=\"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"505\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/02\/Gibson-at-170-Farm-Stand-800x600.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2868\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Council Member Gibson visits the 170 Farm Stand on the last day of the 2019 season.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Taisy Conk, Program Director Community Food Action is increasingly engaging in policy and advocacy issues that affect food justice in the Southwest Bronx. Our objective is to critically examine and impact the decisions made by institutions and elected officials. In 2019 we became inaugural partners of Equity Advocates, who aims to bolster civic engagement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":2867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2865"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2879,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions\/2879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}