Stringer 2013

BY SONDRA WOLFER  

The city should amend its PlaNYC program to include a massive overhaul of the way it deals with food, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said Wednesday.

He released a report with proposals that, if adopted, would prioritize food coming from regional growers, encourage the creation of farmer's markets, motivate people to plant gardens and even redevelop the Hunts Point Produce Market.

"FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System," incorporates the best ideas from December's NYC Food and Climate Summit, held at New York University, into a single document.

"In recent years, there's been growing interest in this issue, but we're still left with a grab bag of disjointed initiatives," said Stringer. "Now the document we're releasing today will for the first time present a single, comprehensive vision for food policy in this city."

Among the proposals:

• The city should facilitate the development of rooftop gardens and create an NYC Urban Agriculture Program, which would provide access, resources and information to promote community gardening.

• Redevelop the Hunts Point Produce Market to modernize the food delivery hub and ensure that the 8,500 jobs the facility maintains remain in the city.

• Dedicate city-owned spaces for farmer's markets around the five boroughs.

• Pass legislation that would require 20% of all food purchased by city agencies to come from local producers.

• Educate New York City's children to become healthy and environmentally aware eaters. Students should have access to some type of agricultural production, be it a community garden or urban farm.

• Create a large-scale municipal composting facility, as well as support small-scale composting through education, decentralized composting bins and more pickup locations.

• Ban the sale of bottled water in all city facilities and on municipal property, and increase the use of water fountains and canteens. Plastic water bottles waste an enormous amount of energy to produce, with only a small portion recycled.

• Create an Office of Food and Markets to coordinate and lead systemic reform of the city's food and agricultural policies and programs. Also, amend PlaNYC to include a comprehensive overhaul of the city's food system.

From New York Daily News