Home-grown approach to fighting hunger

R.I. Food Policy Council Takes First Steps

By ROWAN SHARP/ecoRI.org News contributor

PROVIDENCE — The newly formed Rhode Island Food Policy Council recently held its first open meeting, at the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), with about 30 people in attendance. The council, which envisions strengthening Rhode Island’s local food system and increasing community food security, had been in development for a year and a half.

At the Jan. 30 meeting, council members shared a recently commissioned study of Rhode Island’s food system, discussed upcoming plans and elected officers.

The 16-member Rhode Island Food Policy Council includes representatives with a wide variety of interests in the state’s food system. Newly elected chair Gemma Gorham is project director at Brown University’s Institute for Community Health Promotion; vice chair Andrew Schiff is chief executive officer of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and treasurer Katherine Brown is executive director of the Southside Community Land Trust. 

Other members are from the state departments of Health, Environmental Management and Administration, and the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, among other groups.

The council briefed attendees on the Rhode Island Food Assessment (pdf), a study it commissioned from New York-based Karp Resources. The study identifies elements in the state’s food system that it deems ripe for improvement or change. There are, for example, 46 farmers’ markets in the state, but less than half accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cards. Also, according to the study, one-fifth of Rhode Island cropland is not currently in production, and more than half is used by greenhouse and nursery farmers for non-food crops. The study suggested that increasing food crops grown in the state could advance the council’s goals.

“Of any place I’ve ever lived, I feel like Rhode Island is a place where real change is possible,” said council member Leo Pollock, director of programs for the Southside Community Land Trust.

Council member Krystal Noiseux, recycling program manager for the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, outlined several possible areas for workgroups to tackle, including increasing agricultural production and access to processing, increasing connections between growers and buyers, local and regional initiatives, and food waste and composting.

“It’s important that the council remains malleable,” said Ken Ayars, head of DEM’s Division of Agriculture. “We need to be able to move resources to where things are happening.”

The council will hold another public meeting in March. Though specific plans are unresolved, participants are striving to move from the philosophical to the concrete. The council imagines a “world where profit, equity and environmental stewardship all come together in a local food system,” Brown said. “This isn’t just abstract. We want to do something transformative for our state.”

For more information on the Rhode Island Food Policy Council, send an e-mail to Leo Pollock at leo@southsideclt.org.

Rowan Sharp is a sophomore at Brown University concentrating in environmental studies.