Planning for Santa Fe’s Food Future was developed by the Santa Fe Food Policy Council to ensure that a safe, healthy and affordable food supply will be available to all residents for decades to come. This tool examines various issues through the lens of food, including health, distribution, economy, education, agriculture, land and water conservation. It also bridges local, state, and national issues pertaining to food.
The Santa Fe Food Plan recommends a variety of actions designed to promote food security (availability of healthy food, which is affordable to all residents), improve access to retail outlets that offer healthy and affordable food, encourage healthy eating by all residents to reduce obesity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes, educate consumers, support farmers and ranchers, enhance the food system infrastructure (distribution and storage facilities, transportation, processing), and protect the natural resources necessary to produce food. This is not a static document, but a dynamic one that is meant to be discussed, acted on, monitored, evaluated, and modified periodically.
This plan is divided into three sections: “Getting Food,” “Growing Food,” and “Learning About Food.” Each section provides a list of recommendations that support that respective goal, and each of the recommendations identifies agencies and/or organizations that should take responsibility for its implementation.
In “Getting Food,” the Food Plan encourages the Santa Fe community to use all available means to make healthy and affordable accessible to its residents. To that end, the recommendations ask public officials to ensure that public transportation services can be easily used by residents to connect them to high quality retail food outlets.
The Food Plan’s “Learning About Food” section underscores the connection between our food supply and healthy living. “Food is medicine” is not just a saying, but the best guidance one can receive when choosing what to eat and how to prepare it. The recommendations call for the widespread adoption of wellness policies, institutional practices, and educational programs that expand healthy community food environments and encourage responsible food choices for people of all ages.
The “Growing Food” section highlights the critical role that farmers and our region’s natural resources play in ensuring our food supply. The recommendations strongly urge that city and county governments use all available authorities to promote new and existing gardening, farming, and ranching opportunities.
The Santa Fe Food Policy Council is respectfully requesting that the Santa Fe City Council and the Santa Fe Board of County Commissioners adopt Planning for Santa Fe’s Food Future: Querencia, A Story of Food, Farming, and Friends. If adopted, the Food Plan should become the guiding document for City and County officials, food and farm organizations, and a variety of community groups that support healthy living, resilient communities and robust economies. It is expected that the full implementation of the Food Plan’s recommendations will occur over three years. This collaborative effort is our foundation from which we build a food system that nourishes all people in our community in a just, sustainable, and regenerative manner.