Ten policy recommendations on Food Policy Priorities for 2021 & beyond

In November and December of last year, the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, based at the City University New York, USA, asked the public two questions:

1. What do you think should be the top priority for federal action on food policy in 2021?
2. In your view, what should be the top priorities for federal action on food policy for 2021-2024? Please rank the following 10 priorities 1 to 5 for federal action on food policy in the next 4 years:
   – Expand benefit levels, enrollment in and eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP);
   – Shift federal subsidies from less healthy to more healthy food;
   – Strengthen enforcement of antitrust laws in food and agriculture industries;
   – Improve minimum wage, benefits and safety protections for food and agriculture workers;
   – Create new incentives for food growers and farmers to use climate friendly practices;
   – Expand enrollment and improve nutritional quality of School Food programs;
   – Enforce existing rules and strengthen restrictions on predatory marketing of unhealthy food;
   – Extend and expand federal food relief needed as a result of COVID-19 pandemic;
   – Develop and implement a comprehensive plan to reduce impact of systemic racism in food across federal agencies;
   – Use Medicaid and Medicare, the federal health insurance programmes, to support integrated efforts to prevent and better manage diet-related chronic diseases in health care settings.

The many answers to this timely and ambitious questionnaire were discussed during a public forum on 10th December 2020 on the opportunities for healthier and more equitable federal food policy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising food insecurity, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the continuing threats from climate change.  The forum, the first of two on opportunities for new federal food policy, sought to begin conversation among food, farm and social justice activists on how to (re)shape a new federal food agenda during the coming administration and beyond.

‘With a new administration taking office on January 20th and the start of the second decade of the 21st century next month, the time is right for food policy analysts and advocates to take a step back to ask what we hope to accomplish in the coming years’ says the Institute.

The final results of the survey will be published in one of the forthcoming issues of the CUNY Urban Food Policy newsletter. André and Katrin who have worked frequently with Prof. Dr. Nevin Cohen, one of the directors of the Institute, look forward to those.

The CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute is here.

The archive of the Institute’s newsletter Monitor can be found here.

Image: “Another world is necessary. Another world is possible. Another world is happening.” An enormous message summed up by the words of Grace Lee Boggs has become the cover image of the project. (source: Hannah Lewis www 2021)