The Urgent Call for a U.S. National Food Strategy
Calling for a coordinated approach to food system policymaking for the United States.
Since 2017, federal agencies have taken some steps to coordinate on discrete food system issues, yet none of these initiatives has led to a comprehensive strategy that holistically addresses critical food system challenges.
Simply stated, the need for a coordinated federal approach to food and agricultural law and policy has increased dramatically since 2017. Our food system has been in crisis for years; given the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the strong, sustained efforts to address systemic racial inequality that raise significant food system issues in the U.S., our nation can no longer afford to postpone strategic food system planning.
The Urgent Call for a U.S. National Food Strategy illustrates the need for a coordinated federal approach to food and agricultural law and policymaking through an analysis and review of new domestic strategies and coordination approaches, as well as international food strategies developed since 2017. In addition, the report considers some of the major impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food system – disproportionate food insecurity affecting BIPOC communities, alarming rates of infection among food and agricultural workers, significant threats to farm income, a dramatic increase in food waste – to consider how these issues demonstrate both an urgent need for a national food strategy and how they might have been alleviated and addressed more quickly with the kind of coordinated food system leadership a national food strategy would provide.
