Local Food Policy Database

The Local Food Policy Database contains enacted state and local laws, ordinances, resolutions, plans, and other official policies that influence local and regional food systems. It includes policies at the village, town, city, regional, county, or district levels. Federal or tribal law and policy is beyond the scope of this research.

Policies were identified through reviews of other CAFS policy databases, including the Healthy Food Policy Project Policy Database, the Farm to School State Policy Database, and the Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Policy Project. To be included in this database, each policy must 1) directly affect one or more aspects of the food system, 2) have a clear connection to local or regional food systems, 3) be officially adopted or enacted, and 4) have verifiable documentation.

Policies that are only indirectly affecting food systems, are solely general agricultural or environmental policies without an explicit food systems connection, or are temporary measures were excluded. However, we included a limited number of COVID-19 emergency policies because they provide valuable examples of legal and policy approaches that can strengthen local and regional food systems during future emergencies, including climate-related disasters and other disruptions.

Each policy was summarized and tagged using a consistent classification framework covering major topic areas such as food access, agricultural production, urban agriculture, institutional procurement, markets and distribution, land access and tenure, and food system governance, among others. This standardized methodology creates consistency, transparency, and comparability across jurisdictions, and creates a structure for future expansion of the database.

For future updates to the database, policies will be identified through systematic reviews using standardized inclusion methodology.