Community-Led Food System Change
The Delta Directions Consortium (DDC) is an interdisciplinary network of individuals, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and foundations that work together to create positive social change in the multistate Mississippi Delta Region. The Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) has been a key member of DDC since its inception. Our goals include improving public health and promoting socioeconomic development. We partner across the academic/community divide and across disciplines to bring resources, research, policy, and potential solutions to communities throughout the Mississippi Delta; provide educational opportunities for students to do engaged scholarship and translational work and for regional, national, and global leaders to learn about challenges and opportunities to support the region; and disseminate, replicate, and expand our methods, findings, and successes, both within the Delta and to partners in similar rural regions.
...Community-based and community-driven organizations, particularly those led by individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and other Persons of Color (BIPOC), have long advocated for food system changes that would promote equity, transparency, and participatory decision-making for the benefit of families, communities, food producers, and food system workers. However, transforming the way food is produced, distributed, consumed, and disposed requires advocates to navigate a complex food law and policy landscape.
...A growing number of local food advocates have become concerned about the impacts of the current food system on our health, our environment, and our economies. Many advocates seek to address the system’s environmentally damaging practices, inequitable distribution of healthy foods, and lack of opportunity for civic engagement in the current model of food production and consumption. Solving these challenges often requires healthy, environmentally sustainable, and economically and socially just food policies.
...Regulation of the American food system is marked by inequality and inefficiency. There is no federal “food” agency; instead, food is regulated by fifteen different agencies under myriad federal laws, resulting in conflict, inefficiency, and redundancy.
...