HomeMy WebLinkAbout062316 Jefferson County Local Food System Council - Post-docket JEFERSON COUNTY LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM COUNCIL (JCLFSC)
Policy Subcommittee
City of Port Townsend
Planning Commission
250 Madison Street
Port Townsend, WA 98368
June 13, 2016
Dear Planning Commissioners and Staff
We appreciate your decision to extend the comment deadline on the proposed
amendments to the City's Comprehensive Plan. We also appreciate the prior
opportunity to provide input to the Commission, as reflected in the Memo of
May 4, 2016, for the May 12, 2016 meeting, in which the Commission took up
again the Docket Item No. 51, with regard to amendments to the Economic
Development Element of the Port Townsend Comprehensive Plan (Plan).
Specifically, the Commission was being called upon to amend parts of the
Plan to "Consider promoting local food production as an economic strategy."
Although the Policy Committee of the Food Council had concluded that our
previous input likely sufficed, it was decided that the extended comment-
period provided an opportunity for some additional input that we did not
want to pass up. In short, the Committee and Council greatly appreciate the
openness the Commission has fostered with regard to community input.
Assuring a robust local food system is essential for emergency preparedness,
our community's self-reliance, and to ensure that citizens have access to safe,
healthy, fresh foods. Unfortunately, the City's current Comprehensive Plan
legislative Update still offers insufficient explicit support for our local food
system. While inclusion of definitions for "food hubs" and "commercial
kitchens" in Chapter 17.08 PTMC, as well as clear use classifications within
the PTMC are helpful changes, additional narrative and policy support
within both the Community Direction Statement and the Land Use and
Economic Development Elements of the Plan is strongly advised.
The American Planning Association has long recommended the inclusion of
food policies in local and regional plans. Similarly, public health
organizations (e.g., American Public Health Association, American Dietetic
Association) have recognized the importance of developing and
memorializing principles to guide the establishment of healthy and
sustainable local food systems. Moreover, here in our state, the Washington
Food System Roundtable, in an effort inaugurated by then-Governor Gregoire
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and the Legislature, has been hard at work developing a "25-year vision for a
healthy, just and sustainable food system."'
Jefferson County agriculture, and Port Townsend food culture, have
experienced a renaissance in recent years, and are key contributors to our
local economy. A healthy local food system is a cornerstone of transition and
resilience planning, and critical to our community's future. The City's Plan
Update process offers a golden opportunity to incorporate a basic policy
framework that memorializes the City's support for strengthening our local
food system. For example, in the introductory sections of the plan that tries
to state the community's vision for its future, in identifying "We envision Port
Townsend as...," the following could be added:
A community that can feed itself
Part of our heritage is as a farming community, and we envision continuing
that tradition by encouraging local food production, within neighborhoods
and homes, as individual gardens or cottage-food operations with potential
to grow to commercial scale beyond the neighborhood, creating jobs and
resiliency. Our health, our local economy, as well as our community
resiliency is enhanced by our local food production businesses.
Another potential addition could be made to the following parts of the Plan.
Residential Lands
Goal 9: To accommodate the population growth objectives for the City of Port
Townsend and to further the objectives of the Housing Element of this Plan.
Specifically, adding policies such as-
9.17 Support residential food production by creating facilitated processes for
the approval of conditional uses in residentially zoned areas, such as cottage-
food production, food-processing otherwise permitted by county or state,
and community gardens and other agriculture activities.
9.18 Allow for organic community food garden spaces to be included in
conjunction with all residential housing densities, to increase local access to
healthy food for all income levels, and to increase our local food security.
The Council has invested significant effort in drafting Strategic Principles
that set forth much of the vision that we would like to see included in the
Plan. Accordingly, we respectfully urge the Port Townsend Planning
Commission to develop and incorporate brief Plan narrative and policy
1 The still-in-progress draft Prospectus,which is in its final stages of adoption,is found here:
htt /www.chuckanuttransition.com/Uploads/1/3/7/9/13798128/Drospectusinwordformatsepte
mberversion2 2.pdi
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language which offers explicit support for our local food system, and all of the
processes and infrastructure that go into the production, storage, processing,
transportation, marketing, and distribution of local food. We have attached
the "Strategic Principles" adopted by the JCLFSC to further assist you in
developing appropriate narrative and policy language to be included within
the City's Plan. Finally, please know that we are willing to work further with
the Commission in any way needed to make sure that the Plan is a success
for our community, particularly with regard to local food production.
Sincerely,
G
�f �
Denis Stearns,
Member JCLFSC Policy Subcommittee
Secretary of JCLFSC Executive Committee
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JEFFERSON COUNTY LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM COUNCIL
MISSION:
Working together to create, expand, and strengthen a local food system that is
accessible, healthy, sustainable and economically vibrant.
PREAMBLE
The work of the Council—and its reason for existing—is premised on a number of
working assumptions, based on the knowledge and experience of Council members. Such
assumptions are, by necessity, subject to change as the Council conducts fact-finding and
seeks to better educate itself about the state of the food system in Jefferson County. That
said, the following are the key assumptions currently guiding the Council's work.
• Local food access and security requires holistic thinking about the food system,
including improved food-system literacy; the active collaboration of local
government with residents, community organizations, businesses, schools, and
state and federal government agencies; and the enactment of policies that reflect a
systems approach, based on the understanding that our county has historically had
the capacity to feed its residents solely through local food production.
• Enhancing a community's ability to fully feed itself boosts local resilience in
cases of natural or man-made disasters, and fuels the wealth of the community by
keeping money localized that would otherwise be invested or spent elsewhere.
• Sustainable methods of local production,processing, distribution, consumption,
and waste -recovery in the food system contribute to enhancing and protecting the
health of our environment and our residents.
• The sustainable production, abundance, efficient distribution and ready-
availability of safe local food will tend to increase food security while decreasing
the negative impacts on the environment, both locally and afar, that are associated
with reliance on fossil fuels, the widespread use of pesticides and other chemicals,
and commodification of foods produced on large-scale, factory-like farms.
• Local agriculture and the local production and processing of food is an important
and growing part of Jefferson County's economy, attracting young people from
all over the United States who want to be mentored in sound farming practices.
DEFINITIONS
Food Literacy: Food literacy means understanding the systems through which
food progresses from soil to table and back to soil, including how food is grown,
processed, transported, acquired,prepared, and consumed, and how waste is managed. It
includes recognizing the impacts on individuals, communities, and the natural world of
Final Version (pending adoption at Dec. 3, 2015 council meeting).
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our food-related decisions and actions. It nurtures appreciation of the intricate webs of
relationship that bind all of life and link food, culture, health, and the environment. Food
literacy promotes the knowledge, values, and skills that enable effective action on behalf
of healthy people and resilient communities in harmony with nature.i
Food Security: Food security for a household means access by all members at all
times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum: (1)
The ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods; and (2) assured ability to
acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to
emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).
Sustainable Agriculture: An integrated system of plant and animal production
practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term: (1) satisfy human
food and fiber needs; (2) enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base
upon which the agriculture economy depends; (3) make the most efficient use of non-
renewable resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and
controls; (4) sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and(5) enhance the
quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.3
STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES
1. Ensure the right to food security for all residents.
2. Create a system of food agriculture capable of supporting the population of
Jefferson County without diminishing the long-term carrying capacity of our
natural resources.
3. Protect local agricultural land.
4. Support both rural and urban food agriculture that reduces our reliance on
food items produced elsewhere that can be produced locally.
5. Ensure that farming remains a viable and valued vocational option by:
• Honoring food farmers' basic needs;
• Providing opportunities for agricultural education;
• Collaborating to develop agricultural support systems;
• Working to build shared infrastructure that allows farms to remain
decentralized and take on less debt in order to function;
1 This definition is closely based on the one found on the Lexicon of Food website,which can
be found here:htt s: /www.lexiconoffood.com/definition/definition-food-literacX
Z Based on USDA Economic Research Service definition found here:
htt /www.ers.usda.LJOV topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security_in_the_
us/measurement.aspx
3 Thomas Lyson,CIVIC AGRICULTURE:RECONNECTING FARM,FOOD,AND COMMUNITY 78 (2004)
quoting Food,Agriculture,Conservation,and Trade Act of 1990,Public Law 101-624 (Nov.28, 1990).
Final Version (pending adoption at Dec. 3, 2015 council meeting).
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• Identifying and helping to remove barriers to land acquisition and use by
new farmers.
6. Encourage access to local, regionally-adapted animals,plants, seeds,
transplants, and nursery-stock that are free of the unknown effects of biotech
modification.
7. Increase food self-reliance and community resilience, and encourage
landowners to participate in growing food.
8. Advocate for the protection of pollinators.
9. Maximize the sale and local-use of food produced in Jefferson County.
10. Collaborate with government and the business community to develop and
maintain infrastructure needed to support local food production and
distribution.
11. Ensure the majority of organic waste materials in Jefferson County are
composted and cycled back into the soil to maintain and increase its fertility.
12. Seek to capture and distribute food that is recoverable and useful.
13. Foster community food literacy, including educating all students from
Kindergarten through High School.
Final Version (pending adoption at Dec. 3, 2015 council meeting).
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