2019 CAFLP Annual Conference Panel Recap: “Municipal Governance: Scales, Cities and Food”
There has been conversation at this conference about issues of food and jurisdiction, including questioning which governmental entities are responsible for implementing food policy. This panel recognized the role of local government in this responsibility, and the idea that civil society should be participating in government.
Cecilia Rocha presented on the food policies of Belo Horizonte in Brazil that began in 1993 out of the platform of newly elected mayor Patrus Ananias. The municipality created a dedicated department for food security and policy, which was unique at the time and is still unique, both in Brazil and around the world.
Programs of the department included the following:
- food assistance;
- food supply and market access;
- agroecology, urban agriculture, and family agriculture;
- food and nutrition education; and
- gastroeconomy and professional qualification.
The vision of the program, according to project leader Carlos Henrique, was guided by the right to food: “Our secret is the ethics of our work, respect for the people (…) a philosophy of work dedicated to the neediest population of the city, those who never had access or rights to anything (…) We wanted to show something new, something which would be ahead of its time from a social and democratic perspective.”
Though the right to food has been in Brazil’s constitution since 2010, Cecilia spoke about the municipal pioneering that has withstood national government turnover. In 2006, the idea of Belo Horizonte went to the national level with the creation of the national Food and Nutrition Security Law. Despite the national government of Brazil currently dismantling the law, it is still working at a local level, including in Belo Horizonte in many ways:
- Popular Restaurants serving about 10,000 meals per day in Belo Horizonte in four cafeteria style spaces;
- School Meal Programs serving about 40 million meals in 218 public schools with 30% of the food being purchased from small Brazilian family farms; and
- Abastecer commercial outlet licensing in the city where 20–25 items (i.e. local vegetable, fruit) are set below market price.
Abra Brynne spoke about civil society educating local government, creating potential to inform and influence local laws. Abra provided the example of creating the Central Kootenay Food Policy Council in British Columbia. To break down people’s anxiety about policy, Abra asked them to consider their own food policy: what guides personal food decisions? This reflection provides the framework of food policy, which is a decision-making tool that can be used to examine local food systems. Bringing people together around their food policies provides frameworks to inform local government, which is part of rebuilding place-based food systems.
How can civil society inspire local policy? Can policy at local levels inspire national levels? What are the areas of resistance? Reflections on those questions possess potential to use different jurisdictions so that what is done locally becomes policy and links national policy with local relational knowledge.