Potential collaboration between food policy councils and food hubs

In recent years, food policy in the U.S. has begun to address some of the implications of the industrialization of agriculture and the lack of food security. As it expands to include more voices and overlapping interests, the potential for collaboration between policymakers and the existing infrastructure expands. Food policy councils (FPCs) comprised of food system stakeholders, are developing food policy at the state, county, and regional level to address a diversity of food issues including local food system development. Food hubs, are organizations that assist local small-scale producers with aggregation and distribution of their product and are valuable elements to growing local food systems. In this paper, I conduct a content analysis of FPC achievements and priorities to measure overlap between FPCs and food hubs. The analysis reveals that while there are few FPCs who have achieved food hub related goals, there is significant overlap between FPC priorities and food hubs. This paper further identifies areas for future collaboration between FPCs and food hubs that could develop resilient local food systems across the country and improve access to healthy food for all.