top of page
LAFPCLogo.png

HI, I’M JOY!
A PASSIONATE BAKER WITH OVER 15 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.

This is a space to welcome visitors to the site. Grab their attention with copy that clearly states what the site is about, and add an engaging image or video.

Policy Platform

The current version of the policy platform of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council is derived from the Good Food for All Agenda (2017). These recommendations were identified through broad stakeholder engagement and feedback including focus groups, key stakeholder interviews, working group input and surveys. 

​

Beginning in 2025, an updated version of the Good Food for All Agenda will be completed and subsequently a new version of the policy platform is intended to be released in early 2026.

DSC03039.jpg

Lafpc's Strategic Pillars

In 2023, the Los Angeles Food Policy Council adopted three strategic pillars to guide its work in advancing food equity:

Policyupdate-01.png

1. Food and Nutrition Security

Ensuring all Angelenos have access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food.

Policyupdate-02.png

2. Economic Development

Supporting food businesses, creating equitable job opportunities, and strengthening local food economies.

Policyupdate-03.png

3. Environmental Sustainability

Reducing food loss and food waste, promoting sustainable agriculture, and mitigating the environmental impacts of the food system.

Policy Pillars and
Recommendations:

While the policies in this platform were originally developed under the Good Food for All Agenda (2017), they have been realigned under these three pillars to reflect LAFPC’s current priorities. The upcoming 2026 policy platform update will further refine these strategies with input from stakeholders.

1. Food and Nutrition Security:

Policy recommendations under the food and nutrition pillar aim to promote availability, accessibility, affordability and promotion of  nutritious foods across the food system and supply chain including within schools, health care, retail, charitable feeding, safety net and housing.

    1. Support insurance and Medical/Medicaid coverage for diabetes prevention programs, including lifestyle modification programs that empower people to adopt healthy diets

    2. Support a state or local tax on sugar-sweetened beverages which would generate funds in Los Angeles for public health and community food projects.

    3. Expand Good Food Purchasing Program through the adoption of policy by Los Angeles County, including LA County Health Services, Recreation and Parks, and Senior and Community Services Departments. 

    1. Grow Market Match and other voucher programs to increase fresh fruit and vegetable purchases by SNAP participants at farmers’ markets, healthy neighborhood markets, grocery stores, community-supported agriculture (CSAs) and pop-up markets

    2. Establish a Good Food Retailer recognition program for stores that sell healthier food options, accept nutrition subsidies (SNAP, WIC) and abide by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) food waste standards.

    3. Link enrollment to MediCal or MedicAid to automatic enrollment in SNAP. 

    4. Encourage all cities in LA County to adopt policies that require SNAP acceptance at farmers’ markets. 

    5. Promote enrollment in supplemental nutrition programs such as SNAP and WIC and reduce barriers to participation (e.g.: program eligibility requirements for employment—particularly for students, documentation status and receipt of other social programs such as Supplemental Security Income)

    1. Improve quality and sourcing of meals served to food insecure populations receiving public food assistance, including seniors, youth, hospital patients, and the incarcerated

    2. Improve quality and oversight of charitable food and public meal programs for seniors and those with restricted diets.  

    3. Promote Summer Lunch Program in public parks to feed children from low-income families. 

    4. Develop services at local public colleges and universities to address rising food insecurity amongst college students.

    1. Increase public and affordable housing as a way to address rising rates of food insecurity and crisis of homelessness.  

    2. Ensure that supportive housing has more community kitchens to help overcome cooking barriers for high need residents. 

2. Economic Development: 

Policy recommendations under the Economic Development pillar consider healthy food retail from a business, employment and healthy food access perspective and spans diverse businesses including street vending, brick and mortal and urban farming operations.Policies within this pillar support pathways for food entrepreneurs and business owners to enter and sustain the food business, foster thriving employment opportunities and fair labor standards with the food business sector,  as well as building market opportunities for supply chain actors.

    1. Establish Good Food Zones around historically impacted neighborhoods that prioritize healthy, high-road food businesses, while discouraging nuisance activity. Tools of the Good Food Zone can include incentives like subsidies, tax reductions, expedited permitting, or requirements such as minimum amount of staple and/or fresh foods as a condition for a liquor license.

    2. Fund healthy food business attraction programs and focus on establishments that offer living wage employment, local hire, workforce development for people with barriers to employment and expand access to culturally relevant healthy food options. 

    3. Expand opportunities and remove regulatory barriers for home-based or cottage food entrepreneurs.

    4. Establish new zoning and permitting categories for innovative food production activities and enterprises (e.g. growing and/or selling food in shipping containers, hydroponics, aquaponics, mixed use food growing and processing, etc.).

    5. Legalize sidewalk food vending, establish a Healthy Food Cart program to incentivize healthy sidewalk food vending, assist with public health requirements, and educate about new sidewalk food vending regulations.

    1. Uphold fair labor standards and prioritize local hiring of disadvantaged workers and people with barriers to employment, whom often are people of color. 

    2. Prioritize contracts, subcontracts and investment opportunities for minority and women-owned businesses in food waste.

    3. Support living wage policies and fair employment opportunities for those most vulnerable to poverty and hunger including foster youth, homeless and formerly homeless, formerly incarcerated, veterans, and people with disabilities.

    4. Ensure that employment opportunities emerging from new food waste industry provide living wages.

    1. Build more multi-tenant processing, distribution and kitchen facilities accessible to small, mid-size and start-up farm and food businesses. 

    2. Invest in emerging market opportunities that address gaps in the food supply chain (e.g. COMPRA Foods, a produce delivery service for corner stores). 

    3. Collaborate across local and regional governments to better connect mid-sized farms, processors and manufacturers, to urban and regional market opportunities.

3. Environmental Sustainability

Policy recommendations under the environmental sustainability pillar focus on the intersection of our food system and environmental impacts.  Policies within this pillar emphasize opportunities to expand urban agriculture within Los Angeles by addressing common barriers related to land access, cost of water and restrictive zoning regulations while additionally diverting organic waste from landfills through food waste prevention measures such as recovery and composting. 

    1. Utilize technology such as online databases or phone apps to better coordinate food recovery and track diversion from landfills.

    2. Implement state and federal food waste mandates through local plans, infrastructure and outcomes—including AB 1826 (organics plans), AB 1036 (composting infrastructure), SB 1383 (organic waste methane emission reductions) & AB 954 (accessible food labeling). 

    3. Offer free kitchen-top food scrap bins for residential waste collection.

    4. Ensure all food businesses have food recovery options available through their waste hauling service.

    5. Standardize food donation options for businesses that want to donate food to shelters and food banks within City of Los Angeles RecycLA franchise system, and standardize compensation for food recovery organizations involved.

    6. Invest in constructing local waste management infrastructure including new industrial facilities to compost or repurpose food (e.g. anaerobic digestion).

    7. Allow and encourage food businesses to repurpose surplus food and food scraps into “upcycled” products (e.g: baked goods with nut or juice pulp, animal feed, compost tea fertilizers, etc.)  

    8. Expand community compost hubs so that neighborhoods can compost food scraps at community gardens, schools, churches or other neighborhood places.  

    9. Encourage schools to reduce food waste through programs like “Shared Table,” “Save It for Later,” food donation or school garden composting, which provide a model for students in surplus food management.

    10. Offer food scrap drop off at farmers markets for transfer to compost sites

    1. Mitigate negative impacts of increased water rates on low-income growers by offering rebates on water-saving technology, such as drip irrigation.

    2. Develop land-use strategies and incentives that support smart growth, preserve farming in the region, and protect urban farming locally. 

    3. Encourage first “right-of-refusal” option for tenant farmers who wish to buy their farm when the land owner decides to sell.

    4. Increase access to land for urban agriculture by securing suitable parcels and promoting programs like Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones.

    5. Streamline permitting and leases for community gardens and urban farms on both public and private land. Remove barriers to accessing land, for example by expanding the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone to more cities in LA County. 

    6. Create joint-use policies at school gardens, libraries, and parks for urban farms, compost hubs and other activities supporting Good Food production. 

    7. Establish clear guidelines and encourage food growing in public housing

We reside, work, and cultivate food
on unceded Indigenous homelands.

We acknowledge and honor the descendants of the Tongva, Kizh, and Gabrieleño peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands). We pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.

As part of a greater foodshed, we would also like to pay respect to and honor the Chumash, Tataviam, Serrano, Kitanemuk, ʔíviĨuqaletem, Acjachemen, Payómkawichum, and any other tribal group possibly not mentioned. As a Food Policy Council for Los Angeles we recognize this land acknowledgment is limited and engagement is an ongoing process of learning and accountability. To learn more about these First Nations, visit here.

bottom of page