“Food Policy Councils (FPCs) are committees of food system actors that propose policy and programming changes to strengthen a region’s economy, environment, and community as they
relate to the food system. As of January 2014, over 270 Food Policy Councils (FPCs) are operating at various capacities at local, regional, tribal, and state levels in the U.S. and Canada. FPCs typically emphasize cross-sector collaboration on community-level and systems oriented solutions to produce an alternative to the current conventional food system. Despite many FPCs’ missions to address inequity in healthy food access across neighborhoods and demographics, there has been little research related to how community residents who are most impacted by social inequities or who are most at risk for food insecurity are involved in FPC activities. This research is focused on assessing why and how FPCs include diverse community residents (here defined as low-income consumers, women, mothers, seniors, youth, and people of color) in their policy and programming work. Examples drawn from interviews with a variety of FPCs shed light on current efforts of inclusion and inspire suggestions for improvement.”