Massachusetts has released its food plan, only the third in the last 40 years. You can see it at
http://www.mafoodplan.org
http://www.mapc.org/sites/default/files/MAFoodPlanGoals.pdf
Public comment is invited, email wpitcoff@mapc.org by November 6, 2015.
When Massachusetts first went In Search of a Food Plan, the title of the first attempt, a 1974 report, there were less than 20 farmers’ markets in the Commonwealth. Massachusetts now has 253 three‐season and 46 winter markets farmers’ markets, a permanent Public Market in Boston, 566 farm stands, 266 pick‐your‐own operations, and nearly 200 Community Supported Agriculture systems operated by 465 farmers and fishermen.
According to some of the facts and figures I’ve been able to compile from the MA Food Plan, Massachusetts spends close to $32 billion on food each year, half of it to eat at home and half on eating out. The food system provides a tenth of the jobs in the Commonwealth, 426,000, and is 4.5% of state gross domestic product, $19.3 billion in 2012. The fishery makes up a quarter of those jobs and about half of the Commonwealth GDP from food. Massachusetts is the third largest fish producer in the USA.
Food planning is happening at many different scales. There is a regional NE Food Vision: http://www.foodsolutionsne.org/new-england-food-vision
Greater Boston went through an urban agriculture visioning over 2015: https://bostonurbanag.wordpress.com
Here is the US Department of Agriculture strategic plan: http://www.usda.gov/documents/usda-strategic-plan-fy-2014-2018.pdf
and here is UN FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] report: http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3082e/i3082e.pdf
Previously:
You Can Fix All the World’s Problems In a Garden
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/05/04/330885/–You-Can-Fix-All-the-World-s-Problems-In-a-Garden
City Agriculture Links
http://cityag.blogspot.com
