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Date: 7/5/2023
NORTHAMPTON — As summer kicks into gear, a block party is scheduled for July 7 at the Collaborative for Educational Services to celebrate the first year of the Hampshire County Food Policy Council.
The council, which was officially conceived at the beginning of 2022, aims to fight food inequities and other obstacles to food access through a decentralized power structure that allows those most affected by food inequities to have a larger seat at the table in these conversations.
According to Caitlin Marquis, the Healthy Hampshire program manager and operational coordinator for the food policy council, the idea of the policy council first sprung in 2017 after a food access assessment conducted by Cooley Dickinson Health Care and Healthy Hampshire identified that the establishment of an all-inclusive food policy council was a top priority for the region.
The council functions as a sociocracy, which is a form of self-governance that functions on the basis of equality and makes decisions based on consent rather than majority voting, which means that things move forward if no one objects rather than everyone needing to agree.
“Everybody gets the opportunity to ask clarifying questions, everybody gets the opportunity to react to the proposal, and then the proposal only moves forward if everybody consents to it,” Marquis said. “Consent means, ‘I don’t think this proposal interferes with the aim of our group,’ I can live with it.”
Structurally, the organization features a group of interlinked circles responsible for upholding the work of the council.
According to Marquis, there are circles like “Hub,” “Vision” and “Capacity Building,” which focus more on big-picture items related to the organization.
Then, there are other circles that focus on specific projects like building community gardens, mobile markets and storytelling.
“There’s all kinds of projects happening under the umbrella of the food policy council,” Marquis said.
Kia Aoki, a founding partner of the council and a resident of Hampshire Heights, remembers working on a community garden with Marquis and others from Healthy Hampshire back in 2019. At the time, Aoki also began working on smaller projects that fought food insecurities in different facets across the community like helping with potlucks.
Around the time of the coronavirus pandemic, Aoki received an email from Marquis that explained how an online gathering was being created to talk about improving access to food for people living in places like Hampshire Heights, where food inequities were occurring the most.
“The intent was to create a food policy council, but at that time, none of us knew it,” said Aoki, of the early stages of the council.
Once Aoki started going to these meetings to talk about her values and what she and other residents needed, the idea for the food policy council really started to develop, and Aoki, along with eight other people, organized the first remnants of the council.
“We managed to organize, figure out, and create the first four core circles of the food policy council,” Aoki said.
Currently, Aoki participates in the Hub, which is one of the circles that function as oversight for the entire organization, and she also works in three other circles that work on different projects in the community that help local food economies flourish more.
“A lot of us are in multiple circles, but because there’s no hierarchal structure, we don’t have to answer to anybody,” Aoki said. “We make our own decisions.”
Recently, Aoki said a few of the circles just finished a community garden project where community gardens were built on various Northampton housing properties.
“The whole point of having a community garden is so we can grow what we want to eat,” Aoki said. “It just gives us better access to healthy food, which is the point.”
The Food Policy circle, meanwhile, just visited the Massachusetts State House to talk about issues of hunger and advocated for the state budget to include the council next year.
“That was really successful too, everybody was very kind and welcoming,” Aoki said of the visit.
According to Marquis, the council successfully advocated for state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa (D-Northampton) to sponsor a budget amendment this year that would help food policy councils. The amendment passed last year, but it still has not passed this year. Marquis said she is hopeful the funding will be there again.
“It’s awesome that we have a legislators in Hampshire County who is supportive overall of food policy councils,” Marquis said of Sabadosa and state Sen. Jo Comerford (D-Northampton). “We really feel like we have good relationships.”
The council is also working on a storytelling project, according to Aoki, where the council is collecting stories from low-income people who talk about how they navigated COVID-19 and how they were able to eat. The goal is to create a traveling exhibit that archives the stories for future studies.
Now that the council is a little over a year old, the organization is looking to spread the word even more, especially at the block party on July 7, where people will be allowed to ask questions to learn more about the organization.
“There’s going to be musical performances, and then in between those, we’re planning on people coming up to talk about the food policy council,” Marquis said, of the event. “But mostly, it’s just going to be a real fun time.”
Food from Ginger Love and Wake the Dead Donuts will also be there along with raffle prizes, contests, and activities for kids. According to Marquis, the first 100 attendees will receive a free plate of food, a free order of donuts and a free non-alcoholic beverage.
Marquis also added that people interested in the council may attend any of their meetings at any time. And for those who are interested in joining the work, there is a form on the website that people can fill out to express their interest. All of their meetings are listed on a calendar on their website: https://sites.google.com/collaborative.org/hcfpc/home.
The council is funded by the Moving Massachusetts Upstream grant and includes partnerships with Cooley Dickinson, Collaborative for Educational Services, the Hilltown Community Health Center and Hilltown Community Development.