Food policy councils

Food Policy Councils (FPCs) also referred to as Food Systems Committees, are an increasingly prominent governance structure for engaging with the diverse stakeholders of a state/regional/local food system to make the food system more sustainable and equitable, through things like policy and advocacy. By working across sectors and using a systems-lens, food policy councils involve institutions and individuals with varying perceptions, and address broad topics even beyond the food system, from poverty to public health. The membership of these FPCs tends to reflect this breadth, composed largely of community members and individuals from other institutions and fields. FPCs take many forms, but some of the most common consist of being embedded within a non-profit, the government, being a grassroots coalition or a stand alone non-profit. As of 2017, 341 FPCs were either active, in development, or in transition in the US and Canada alone, up from 329 FPCs in 2016, a statistic which shows their presence and growth. A special part of this food systems solution is that they prioritize their relationships: partnerships with stakeholders and others have been found to be key to the effectiveness of this governance structure.