Food Law and Policy
Each year, 38% of food produced in the U.S. goes uneaten, Each year, the United States generates a huge amount of food that goes uneaten or unsold–over 241 million tons. Of that, 80 million tons of food winds up in landfills, is incinerated, is left to rot in the field, or otherwise goes to waste. This waste consumes 22% of all fresh water and 16% of cropland in the U.S., and makes up 24% of landfill inputs. The U.S. has attempted to address food waste through a range of policies, such as offering liability protections to food donors and food recovery organizations, providing tax incentives for food donations, and supporting new funding and programming for food waste reduction through the 2018 Farm Bill. In addition, recent federal agency actions at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration have aimed to reduce food waste, but there is still more that can be done.
...The novel coronavirus (COVID-19), identified in December 2019, has become a major outbreak and has recently spread rapidly across the United States, impacting life and society in many ways, including our food systems. The Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) is engaged in an emergency response effort to address the impact that COVID-19 is having on our food systems. Our efforts include initiatives supporting donations of excess food due to closures of universities and other venues, analyzing opportunities to increase low-cost home food delivery, and shoring up emergency food systems.
...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.
...Despite the key role that food plays in public health, the majority of physicians are ill-equipped to answer basic questions about food and nutrition. On average, U.S. medical schools offer less than 1% of total lecture hours in nutrition education. Most patients consider physicians to be the most credible sources of guidance about diet and food and would like to talk to their physicians about these topics, yet the majority of graduating medical students rate their nutrition knowledge as “inadequate.”
...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.
...Each year, the United States generates a huge amount of food that goes uneaten or unsold–over 80 million tons. Of that, 54 million tons of food winds up in landfills or otherwise goes to waste. In recognition of this, over the past few years, more and more states and localities have been considering and enacting policies related to food waste and food recovery. According to the Food Law and Policy Clinic’s (FLPC’s) legislative tracking, during 2021 states introduced 99 bills and passed 28 bills aiming to reduce food waste or increase food recovery. FLPC is known as a national leader in this field for our work to identify, analyze, and recommend improvements to laws and policies that impact how much food goes to waste in the U.S., including at the state and local levels.
...The food system is responsible for an estimated 19 to 29 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Perennial agriculture, which refers to the production of crops that are harvested multiple times and live for several seasons without being uprooted, offers a unique and transformative opportunity to drastically reduce these emissions and sequester carbon while offering a wide range of additional environmental and societal benefits. Nonetheless, there remains a disconnect between public policy scholars and practitioners on one hand, and scientists and farmers on the other, impeding the expansion of perennial practices. To help bridge that gap, the Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) works with a coalition of leading perennial agriculture organizations to support the advancement of a perennial agriculture policy agenda.
...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.
...Every year, an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted globally. At the same time, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 690 million people around the world suffered from hunger, and two billion people were unable to regularly access safe, nutritious, and sufficient food. During and long-before the pandemic, food donation has offered a critical and innovative solution to reduce food loss, waste, and hunger, by redirecting safe, surplus food to those who need it most. Uncertainty surrounding the laws and policies affecting food donation, however, are hindering the potential of food donation operations and undermining the contribution food banks and food recovery organizations.
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