Mayoral Food Forum on February 9

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

In order for New York City to address hunger, the City must address poverty. It starts with recognizing that being poor is a full-time job. Getting access to government resources should not require hours of filling out applications or standing in line. This is why I have proposed launching MyCity, a single portal for all City services and benefits. It has never been more important that New Yorkers receive the full support of their government. Imagine typing only one number into a secure app or Web site and instantly receiving every service and benefit you qualify for — such as SNAP — without any paperwork, as well as constant up-to-date information that will help you protect you and your family.

And we must go further with access to real affordable housing, good jobs with fair wages, and quality healthcare. Policy ideas that I have shared in my 100+ Steps Forward for NYC plan. (https://www.ericadams2021.com/PDF106)

When it comes to ending hunger, there is more we can do with our City’s resources. There is an overall lack of information of available food resources throughout the five boroughs. Poor communication and information sharing negatively impacts efforts to connect food insecure individuals with SNAP benefits, food pantries, soup kitchens and other food resources; and this is evident now more than ever in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will form an integrated and community-engaged structure to coordinate food policy in NYC. A critical component of this structure will be to create and maintain easily accessible databases that New Yorkers and public officials can use to monitor and ensure equitable access to nutritious food across all of our communities.

This community-engaged structure will encourage data sharing across food pantries, soup kitchens, other emergency food programs, government entities, and any other relevant stakeholders to work cohesively in tackling hunger and food insecurity. New Yorkers will have access to a public-facing website with the most updated information on location and hours of food access sites and delivery programs. (Food served across these entities should emphasize nutrition in the form of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains as a pathway to long-term sustainable public health. Meals could not only be more nutritious, but also cost-effective and easily prepared at scale if they were more universal. For instance, meals could be kosher, halal, and plant-based.)

To prepare for and appropriately respond to future emergencies, we must establish an emergency plan now and build on the lessons learned from GetFoodNYC regarding logistics and engagement points with constituents.

Finally, we will advocate for funding of nutrition-assistance programs at the state and federal levels to provide ongoing food resources for people at all stages of life, including children, college students, and seniors. This includes advocacy for the continuation and expansion of programs like SNAP, WIC, and P-EBT.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

We should continue to fund and expand technological solutions that enable consumers to purchase groceries online. For instance, we should increase the power of auto-enrollment to reach New Yorkers who are eligible for SNAP and WIC, but may not know they qualify or are not being properly engaged. We will do this through the MyCity platform.

We need to increase utilization of delivered groceries, meals, and other fresh foods to reach people where they live. Continuing to invest in and expand Get the Good Stuff (under SNAP) will not only expand participation in SNAP, but will incentivize the purchase and consumption of healthy fruits, vegetables, and beans. We will provide small business loans/grants and technical assistance to food providers so they can also accept SNAP (this simultaneously allows consumers to use their benefits to buy more culturally-appropriate food). To increase participation, the City would increase awareness of the program on how/where people can apply such as marketing our programs and resources in multiple languages; people won’t enroll if they don’t know if they’re eligible.

Lastly, core to getting more people signed up for government resources is bringing government to the people. We must bring the City right to the doorstep of New Yorkers. Educating New Yorkers about food programs and delivering those services is also necessary for it to be effective. We can do this by equipping City workers with computer tablets that are connected to the City’s unified digital platform and sending them into the areas with the greatest need for City services, setting up shop in open storefronts, NYCHA complexes and even parks. These workers can also connect New Yorkers to federal services and programs that will help us return some of the $20 billion-plus a year that New York taxpayers send to D.C. that we do not get back.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

Food is fundamental to individual, community, and planetary health. It is so critical to everyday life that it must be a central issue in cross-cutting policymaking, whether policies are directly related to food or indirectly related (e.g., procurement practices, environmental policies, health policies). Our government’s administrative structure ought to reflect that. I would significantly increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, making the office a more stable, high-profile, better-staffed, and funded office. The ideal Office would be equipped with the talent and knowledge to exercise overarching jurisdiction over the City’s food practices–both day-to-day and during emergencies.

In particular, an administrative structure led by MOFP is important in overseeing budgets across agencies that deal with food procurement and delivery. The same can be said for the vendor process with the City; we ought to utilize a more central system for food procurement and delivery that creates efficiencies in scale. Additionally, a more central process will allow the city to speak with and tangibly function with one “food voice” which can show New Yorkers that regardless of how or where you receive food from the City, it is healthy and delivered in cost-effective ways.

To enhance mechanisms for community engagement, I would openly call upon relevant government agencies, outside organizations in the food space, and farmers in the local and regional areas to deliver a “lessons learned” document from their experiences before and during the pandemic. Such a document could inquire about what their experience has been, how the City could better support them, and how their services could be better coordinated. This would serve as an opportunity to craft new policy and processes that will work through normal times as well as times of emergency.

I would merge food procurement entities across agencies; this unified procurement strategy, would allow for increased buying power, better coordination and distribution.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

It is critical that Black and Brown communities are included in and are leaders of the creation of food policy, reform efforts, and business opportunities. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice efforts must occur at every step of the enterprise. For instance, we will expand Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises and incentives for training programs for historically underrepresented communities and neighborhoods. Furthermore, we will support local, regional, and urban farms, farmers markets, gardens, and agriculture, particularly in food deserts, food swamps, low-income communities, and communities of color to increase food sovereignty and education of food production and consumption.

Support efforts may include: convening discussions, conferences, and idea summits to harness the knowledge across academia, business, and individual/community input, offer grants to MWBEs, offer technical assistance through partnerships with new businesses and relevant city administrative agencies such as SBS, Parks, DCP, etc.., engage other public officials at the city and state level to ameliorate any zoning issues, and engage nonprofits in communities across the city to enlist volunteerism in new enterprises for students, young people, people in lockup facilities, and everyday New Yorkers.

Training programs may include skills building in food production, preparation, and business development in the food space. Culinary schools could partner with city programs and actors in nonprofits to teach people across the lifespan from students to seniors how to incorporate healthier habits into their everyday life and, if applicable, develop new business enterprises that can enrich the city’s offerings of healthier, culturally appropriate, and tasty food.

Cultural inclusion must be a primary concern as well. New York City is full of people with the expertise and cultural knowledge to design healthy, sustainable food that is simultaneously culturally appropriate. My staff would act as a connector between the healthy food culinary community and cultural communities across the city

We will work to undo the structural racism that exists in our food system by first acknowledging that Western food culture is not necessarily the most nutritious lifestyle, but our government programs and food programs often center Western food culture and ingredients. This is also why it is imperative that we provide small business loans/grants and technical assistance to community food providers so they can also accept SNAP and allow consumers to use their benefits to buy more culturally-appropriate food.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

Addressing poverty is critical to moving away from emergency food as a short-term, reactive solution to food insecurity. We must also create robust, year-round, everyday policies regarding the procurement and delivery of food to communities across NYC that can be sustained and adapted to ramp up should the need occur. These policies should be created with the consultant of nonprofits, restaurants, agencies, and other relevant stakeholders.

We must develop a strong pipeline between New Yorkers and local and regional growers and producers. The pandemic revealed the appeal of and consumers’ desire for local and regional food products. An Office of Food Policy that prioritized procurement of these types of food would support New York farmers and increase New York and its consumers’ levels of food autonomy and sovereignty. Continued investment in and expansion of farmers markets, community gardens, community supported agriculture, and similar sources of food would also be beneficial on an everyday basis and in times of emergency.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

My office has repeatedly pushed for the accelerated implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program as well as holistic ways of utilizing the power of procurement to shift to a more healthy, sustainable, fair, and humane food system. My strengthened Office of Food Policy would ensure that schools and any other institutions have the proper resources to adopt it in a timely manner.

We should not only implement the Good Food Purchasing Program, but should also implement additional programs to make NYC a true leader in food justice. For instance, NYC should track its emissions from food procurement and consumption, as well as join 14 other cities, including Los Angeles, in becoming a signatory of the C40 Good Food Cities Declaration. This declaration would allow NYC to increase its procurement of healthy and sustainable food as well as to decrease its food loss and waste. These actions would ensure that NYC meets important climate goals, and at the same time, facilitate New Yorkers of all backgrounds in gaining access to food that meets high nutritional and environmental standards.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

Students cannot have an adequate education without adequate food. We should guarantee that a wide range of food options, including halal, kosher, vegan, and options for people with extreme allergies, is available. The shift towards more healthy and sustainable food should also consider cultural appropriateness of food, which may be determined based on the demographic information of any specific school. We should also accelerate the roll-out of the breakfast in the classroom program.

The importance I place on school food is demonstrated by my $20,000 worth of allocation for Farmshelf, a project which integrated a comprehensive hydroponics curriculum for students at Brooklyn Democracy Academy to learn how to grow and distribute produce, write code, create applications, build and maintain the vegetation units. This not only portrayed the value of growing healthy food, but enhanced student attendance and participation. As reported by then Principal Dez Ann Romaine, who passed last year due to COVID-19, students were showing up on time, spending more time in the hydroponic lab, and eating healthier. Growing and eating healthy food in school is a tremendous opportunity for students to develop strong relationships with food, but also take the lessons they learned home with them.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

We should strengthen the City’s nutrition standards (e.g., decreasing acceptable cholesterol and saturated fats levels, increasing acceptable fiber levels). As repeatedly recommended by health and environmental scientists, we should also strengthen the City’s food standards (and thus the procured and served food) to incorporate sustainability. Publicly procured and served food should, thus, emphasize fruits, vegetables, and plant-based proteins. These foods, which happen to be some of the healthiest, are also the most climate-friendly.

We may disagree on the ideal meals and diets, but there are foods that are definitively unhealthy. For instance, according to the World Health Organization, processed meats are carcinogenic. We would not serve foods that are definitively unhealthy and linked to disease in public institutions. I successfully pushed for the removal of processed meats from schools, and would continue to expand policies like this.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

We should proactively work to instill funding for these programs in the coming years, with an understanding that these programs serve one of NYC’s most cherished and most vulnerable populations. We should consider how these programs might be centralized within the strengthened Office of Food Policy. We should ask and address how the government can help with procurement and logistical support. Lastly, we should ensure feedback from community-based organizations and older adults is included in policymaking through consultative processes.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

Farmers and food chain workers are one of the most vulnerable labor groups.
We should reform the safety and health inspections of the food industry to ensure that restaurant workers have proper working conditions. We should adopt a red, yellow, and green system. Red indicates that something needs to be modified immediately. Yellow indicates that something needs to be modified, but less urgently. Green indicates that something needs to be modified in 30 days.

Additionally, we should permanently cap third-party delivery fees to ensure that food chain workers are not exploited by these companies. We should also support efforts to increase the minimum wage.

At the federal and state levels, we should push policymakers to ensure that adequate funding is provided to food workers and restaurants. The importance of federal funding for food workers has perhaps never been more apparent than during the pandemic.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

We should regularly engage actors in the space and create opportunities for policymaking to include significant feedback and input from community leaders and everyday people engaging with the food system. Beyond what already exists, we should create incentives through loans and grants to community members looking to enter or sustain their food business.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

A smoothie with berries, kale, cocoa powder, acai powder, maca powder, carob powder, and moringa powder.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Essential.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

Both poverty and hunger must end in New York City. The question implies that commercial, for-profit food distribution is the only channel to end hunger. I believe that enough food exists in New York City to feed everyone, regardless of income level. My point of view is informed by the work of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Feeding America, the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center, the NYC Department of Emergency Management, and my nearly 30 years of experience as a member of the Park Slope Food Coop. So let’s touch on ending poverty and then focus on ending hunger.

Poverty will be greatly reduced by a combination of government relief and economic growth, especially in the small business sector. Longer-term poverty eradication will rely upon holistic solutions that include improved low- and no-income housing, my proposal for Universal Childcare, and an equitable education system that meets every student and their families where they are. I applaud Senator Schumer’s and Representative Ritchie Torres’s bill to revise the Earned Income Tax Credit and to create a Child Tax Credit to provide direct cash relief to the lowest-earning residents; in the Bronx alone, this may lift 50% of children out of poverty.

We can end hunger by a systemic and strategic approach to our food systems, starting from farms, to distribution centers, to distribution endpoints, including schools, restaurants and commercial food services, consumer grocery stores, food pantries, and soup kitchens. This will include introducing new thinking about the relationship between food and profit. The key points in my policies include:

• Prioritizing ending hunger over profit.
• Removing stigma and leveling the playing field: Free school breakfast and lunch for every student.
• Expanding food distribution points, such as schools, childcare centers
• Extracting edible food from the system before it becomes waste (“unused food”). From the farm to the dump, 40% of our food becomes waste. This comes at a huge cost to the environment, climate while creating municipal burdens. (NRDC)
• Wielding the City’s purchasing and public policy power to extract unused food from every point in the farm-to-dump system for redistribution.
• Leveraging the communities of knowledge that already exist, including every non-profit, mutual aid, and other community-based organization involved in food relief, as well as the traditional commercial for-profit operators.
• Connecting the dots with data and software systems oriented to direct democracy. We can map every distribution endpoint, every household experiencing food insecurity, and the flows of food from the sources to identify gaps and promote efficiency. This system would support direct engagement by all participants, especially community-based organizations and food recipients on the ground.
• Community-based kitchens. I will invest in and support the construction of commercial kitchens across the city available for use by community-based organizations and by micro-entrepreneurs seeking to start their own food businesses.
• Incentivizing and supporting alternative organizations. These are especially important given the COVID-driven closures of grocery stores that serve lower-income communities across New York City. The two major opportunities I see are
  • Alternative ownership structures, including cooperatives, ESOPs
  • New intermediate processing points, like kitchens to convert low edible food to edible food (e.g. chicken parts and bones to soup)

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

This is a problem that technology and available data can address. By virtue of the City income taxes, the City has the income data on every filer in New York City, which includes the majority of undocumented residents. The City can and should develop an integrated services system to automate and maximize the benefits delivery to every New York City resident who qualifies, much like the systems developed by Code for America in the State of California.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) agrees. Data matching and reaching out via text to people eligible but not participating is enormously efficient. City government should be in service to the public, not place the responsibility of outreach on eligible recipients.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

Per my answer above, we need to have a systemic and strategic approach that would provide a different structure for NYC food oversight. Technology will be key for providing data and community engagement/participation.

The Mayor has an opportunity to unify and streamline the public policies related to food. When policies can’t be fully unified, then technology can be used to reconcile divergent policies as I have done several times in my career.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

Two competing forces exist the need to have equity across the system AND the need to address the specific cultural needs of each community. I believe we can have both in a bottom-up approach that meets every family, every community where they are.

In the kind of technology system, I’m describing, all communities must be engaged in its creation and the creators must also be reflective of the communities served. The process will be community-driven, where success is measured by the elimination of hunger and the satisfaction of every community.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

Emergency Food is a reactive and tactical response to a situation that the City was unprepared for. Fortunately, in this case, the City stepped up to fill a gaping hole in a critical supply chain and forestalled disaster. I commend this effort.

When COVID ends, we can’t go back to the way it was pre-COVID. We must address food as a strategic and essential component of a healthy city, with healthy communities. This effort must be continuous.

Food sovereignty is similar to the City’s water systems in the need to work back to the points of origin of our supply; however, the City needs to develop partnerships with farms across the region and work with adjacent communities and government leaders to enhance the producers of locally grown products, including those produced in New York City.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

There needs to be an office devoted to this. At the Park Slope Food Coop, we have a member committee that ensures our food buying meets stringent requirements for worker rights, environmental and climate practices, nutrition, animal welfare, and racial equity practices. This information is available to all members.

The Good Food Purchasing program is very similar to the PSFC’s and must become a permanent part of the City’s food procurement system, as it is at the PSFC. Under my administration, we will make the data publicly available via an open website so that it can influence purchasing decisions beyond the five boroughs.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

I am Korean-American and gluten free. I have worked in nearly every job in a restaurant, including the back of house. I pride myself on my cooking.

To me, food represents culture and love. It shows the degree to which we understand people and care for their specific needs. School food is therefore very important. To the greatest extent possible, I believe food should be prepared onsite. If not possible, then it should be prepared in locations close to the school to maximize freshness.

My administration will have a strong emphasis on worker development. My personal experience is that people who work with food are curious and interested about improving their skills and the quality of the finished product. Workers will also have a great deal of knowledge to impart.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

Quality and nutritional value starts at the source, so the focus would need to be at the ingredient level, which means procurement.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

These organizations and their clients will also benefit from becoming part of the Food Democracy System outlined in the first answer above.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

Foodservice workers are often members of low-income communities. A significant inequity comes from the two-tiered system in which City employees are protected by unions and receive living wages and benefits, while workers in community-based organizations and non-profits generally make minimum wage. We must move to pay parity for equal work. Diversity in the workforce will also be essential for ensuring cultural compatibility for food preparation and service.

On a separate note, we will work with the state legislature to eliminate the ban on tip-sharing with non-service workers in restaurants, so that we can adopt One Fair Wage.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

See community-based kitchens in the first answer above.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Gluten-free toast with pesto, smoked wild salmon bits and soft-boiled organic eggs. Plain organic Bulgarian yogurt over chopped clementine and organic pear, topped with wild honey. Organic Mexican coffee with almond milk and turbinado sugar.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Fractured.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

At the start of the pandemic, I started a non-profit, Common Table, to distribute restaurant meals directly to food insecure families in partnership with philanthropy, food relief organizations, neighborhood restaurants and community-based organizations. Programs like this can be adopted by the city to fill the gap in the emergency food system. 

There are several mechanisms that can be used to end hunger in New York City. First, in my ‘15 minute neighborhood’ plan, we will make sure everyone has vital resources within 15 minutes of their front door. That means, a great public school, fresh food, access to rapid transportation, a park, and a chance to get ahead can all be found within 15 minutes.

Hunger comes from poverty and a lack of access to affordable, nutritious food and we have policy plans that work to actively combat poverty. This, in turn, will lift people out of hunger.

One of my biggest proposals to decrease poverty is providing Equity Bonds. In this plan, we would provide Equity Bonds of $1,000 to every child in New York City. The plan would also provide annual deposits of up to $2,000 for public, charter, and low-income private school students.

This investment would immediately begin to tackle generational wealth disparities that play a fundamental role in systemic inequality. Funds would be accessible to enrollees upon graduation from a New York City school, attainment of a G.E.D. or apprenticeship (including a grace period), for purposes like paying for college, buying a home, starting a business, eradicating debt, and other methods of achieving economic security. 

You can learn more about that proposal https://shaunfornyc.com/equity-bonds/

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

Through my deep connections with the Biden Administration, I’d work with Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack to expand access to food including SNAP and WIC. I’d partner with him to rethink what goes into the Thrifty Food Plan market basket to make sure that healthy and nutritious foods are covered in these programs. 

I’d also work with the federal and state governments to expand SNAP so that the restaurant meals program can be used to fill these needs. This would ensure that fresh,, hot meals that are culturally appropriate can be delivered to communities and ease the burden on our food pantries. It would also help restaurants get back on their feet after the pandemic. 

We’d look towards different messaging and enrollment campaigns so that the people in need of these services are able to get signed up for the programs that can serve them.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

Yes, first and foremost, we need more power in the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy. I would designate a Deputy Mayor responsible for food security that would be a comprehensive role focused on engaging the public and looking across all agencies and city partners to create a unified food security plan.

Every New Yorker should have the opportunity to live in a 15 minute neighborhood, where a great public school, fresh food, access to rapid transportation, a park, and a chance to get ahead can all be found within 15 minutes of their front door. This includes access to a park and gardens that can be used for urban food growth as well as a farmers market. We would work closely with how students and other types of community organizations interact with residents. 

I also believe that through eminent domain, the city can find unused and empty lots that we can use for urban agriculture to increase our overall food supply directly in neighborhoods.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

I am committed, on the first day of my administration, to appoint a Chief Equity Officer as part of my cabinet that will oversee all aspects of racial, gender, and ethnic equity for our city. This will be a role that is driven by data to tackle the systemic and structural inequities of our city. 

The Chief Equity Officer in the Mayor’s cabinet to set goals, measure progress, and collaborate with all agencies of the City of New York to ensure progressive achievement. Two primary pillars of our equity work include:

Refocusing the New York City Economic Development Corporation around driving economic growth that is tied to economic equity for all New Yorkers

Strengthening the minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) network and infrastructure to ensure we are making the most equity-minded decisions when determining and awarding contracting opportunities

These pillars are inclusive of our city’s food plan so that we are building an equitable food system and an equitable city overall.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

When I was HPD Commissioner, I partnered with community residents and leaders to host a design competition for a new housing development in the Bronx. The result of that was Via Verde, the most healthy sustainable affordable housing in the city. This included a rooftop garden so residents can grow their own fruits and vegetables that they would use for meals. We should build upon this model so that residents have easy access to their food. 

I’d also invest in local businesses and infrastructure to prevent the reliance on the emergency food system. This would support the local economy and jobs with the hope that fewer people are in need of the emergency food supply. 

Lastly, I would include food planning as part of a comprehensive zoning plan for the city that would include urban agriculture. We need to think holistically about moving away from Emergency Food and toward long-term food sovereignty and that involves thinking about how we design our neighborhoods.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

I believe that in order to make the Good Food Purchasing Program sustainable for the city, we need to adopt it across the region and create a regional food system where neighboring cities and towns are involved in the overall food plan. I’d partner with agencies like the Regional Planning Association as well as the Governor’s office to make sure that all relevant parties – whether that’s our agriculture sector, shipping companies, or labor sector, along with many more – are coming together to create a regional food plan that ensures we are bringing nutritious, sustainable food to New York City in an efficient way.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

The first thing I would do is mandate breakfast and grab-and-go meals in our public schools. This would provide food to any child who is in need at the place they frequent most. 

I would make sure that we have cultural and religious appropriate food in our schools by partnering with the Department of Education to oversee this. I’d also make sure that any child with dietary restrictions has food options. In my Education policy plan, I go into depth about the many ways our schools will be culturally responsive and that includes the food they serve.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

As stated above, I’d adopt the Good Food Purchasing Plan to ensure the food that we are bringing into the city is high quality and nutritious. The city is the biggest buyer of food in the city, and much of that food is for our schools so by adopting this plan, we will improve the quality of food that schools receive. 

I’d also work with local restaurants, like I did with my Common Table program, to deliver hot, nutritious, culturally sensitive food to residents throughout the city at the start of the pandemic. This both helps keep our restaurants in business but allows for residents to get food delivered directly to them, especially for those who cannot stand in line at food pantries. I’d scale up this program so more people have access to services like this.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

Like it has with many areas, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that the city’s emergency food system was lacking, especially in supplying food to our neediest, elderly populations. In my administration, I plan to scale up the Fresh Food for Seniors program as a citywide program in partnership with GrowNYC, rather than in local partnerships with individual councilmembers. 

Throughout my administration, I will emphasize working with communities to make change happen with them, rather than to them. We will consult with advocates and community-based organizations on the design of this program, and keep an emphasis on organizations that speak multiple languages, religious knowledge, and general cultural competency to assist with delivering food to the individuals and communities most in need and difficult to reach. We will deliver food in keeping with the cultural and religious needs of these communities, not from cookie-cutter corporate catering services.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

There are many ways I would ensure food works are treated equitably. The first of that is making sure every food worker is back on the job and on the job safely through wide-spread vaccine distribution. These frontline workers put their lives as well as their families at risk and they should be able to receive protection from COVID-19 as quickly as possible. I’d also make sure they receive hazard pay for the work they did during the pandemic. 

We also need to make sure we get restaurants cooking again. So many of our city’s restaurants have closed or at risk of closing and the longer they stay shuttered, the harder it will be for them to bounce back and more of our food workers will lose their jobs. Within our restaurants, I am a proponent of the no-tipping movement so we can pay our front and back of house equally. 

I also believe we need to raise our minimum wage to $15. Earlier this year, I stood with the Teamsters in Hunt’s Point to demand a $1-per-hour raise. I commit to continuing my partnership with the jobs sector and unions throughout the city for fair wage and employee benefits for all workers. My campaign is centered around the importance of unionized labor and its role in the recovery of the city.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

To fortify and expand community-driven efforts, we need to look toward technology as a way to bolster our food system. As I explained before, I did this with my program Common Table. We connected restaurants to those in need of food delivery through a phone application where residents could easily order food from partnering restaurants throughout the city. 

My administration will place importance on using data and technology to expand outreach, but as stated earlier, fully utilize community-based organizations when looking to reach individuals who are traditionally left behind by the government, such as those speaking other languages, or those without smartphones or steady internet connections.

I will also partner with CBOs to reach those who don’t have easy access to technology to make sure they are also able to get these services. As I stated earlier, I will emphasize working with communities to make change happen with them, rather than to them.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Yogurt parfait – have to keep my energy up throughout all of the zoom forums!

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Inequitable.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

I believe that the purpose of government is to provide its citizens with basic needs: Food is the most basic of these needs. I have a two-fold plan to address food insecurity and decrease poverty in New York City by utilizing a grass roots, local approach. New York is famous for its restaurants and each of its fifty-nine communities has restaurants specific to the culture of its residents. With city funding, local restaurants can provide healthy, culturally specific foods to people in need while hiring local residents to help with distribution, thereby improving local economies and addressing the needs of citizens in crisis.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

Each of the community boards within the five boroughs will have agents specifically appointed to focus on food insecurity with the specific goal of connecting eligible, needy citizens with federally-funded programs. They will focus on schools, churches and social clubs within the community to locate families in crisis. There will be a twenty-four hour hotline to serve citizens in need.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

I would increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy while working in a grassroots fashion within each community to find where best to allocate funding and to specifically work with local restaurants to help provide food for citizens in need. There should be one agency whose only focus is to serve citizens suffering from food insecurity. Private, non-profit groups which serve our communities would work with a central city agency to ascertain how to effectively address the needs of hungry people.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

The way to respect the culture and needs of communities of color is to work in a hyper-local fashion to understand and respect cultural traditions and foods. If there are restaurants in the communities, I would provide city funding to help each restaurant provide healthy, culturally appropriate foods and hire local residents to distribute these meals. If the community is in a food desert and lacks local restaurants, I would work with local schools and churches to locate needy families. I would search for under-utilized real estate to construct community, city and state government funded “restaurants” and food pantries to provide needy residents with food.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

Again, by working in a hyper-local, grassroots fashion; by focusing on each community in New York City with its various cultures and needs; by providing citizens with consistent support on a daily basis so that Emergency Food becomes a thing of the past.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

The United States has been providing sustenance to millions of people throughout the world since WWII. New York City’s neediest citizens are facing the direst shortfall of food in their communities since the Great Depression. I would look to examples of past and current federal policy where large-scale food distribution has been most successful. I would build on these successful strategies and implement them within the five boroughs. I would streamline the relationship between the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy and local communities, work to coordinate relationships between federal, state and local agencies and discourage competition and red tape. I would work tirelessly to provide local and community agencies a prominent voice in describing and re-writing their future.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

Our children are out most precious resource. It is of utmost importance that every child has their most basic need met: to have healthy, culturally and medically appropriate meals that help them navigate their daily lives and challenges. Each community board, under the auspices of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, will work with local school systems to design menus that appeal to and nourish every child.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

Again, New York City is famous for its restaurants and the chefs who create the menus. I would provide state and city funding to work with local chefs to design menus utilizing community garden and New York State local farm produce to provide fresh, healthy foods for the people that most need them.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

I will provide them with greater state and city funding and listen respectfully to their concerns. I will learn from the organizations who already know the people in their communities and have tried mightily, with limited resources, to address their needs.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

I am a great believer in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program with its worker-driven, socially responsible policies. it is imperative to give voice to workers everywhere.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

I would provide communities with appropriate funding and maintain a healthy respect for each community’s awareness of their own needs and their understanding of how to address those needs.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Black tea with milk.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Promising.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

Poverty brings about all sorts of ills such as hunger, crime, deteriorating health, homelessness and more. The COVID19 pandemic brought limited resources and the closure of businesses that were essential for the poor. Pantries, soup kitchens, hunger hotlines, charities, non-profits, philanthropists, organizations, food banks, etc all need to raise the effort and money to be able to reach millions of unemployed and the hungry. The root causes of poverty can be reduced significantly by: every person having an education, vocational training, etc and by raising women’s wages, the minimum wage, by investing in varied job fields, poverty zones, better childcare, seniors, make sure workers have paid family and medical leave. Reform the criminal incarceration system where discriminatory 

practices leads to biased sentences. Laws against discrimination. Laws for worker’s rights. Make streets safe from crime. Fix the healthcare system. Eradicate corruption in every sector. More eco-friendly. Prevent conflicts/war. Discounted products make consumers save more money. The increased cost of living is keeping people in poverty -there has to be a set of resolutions in the budget to make it affordable to all. New plans to be set up.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

It was discovered that immigrants were afraid to enroll in SNAP and WIC and many others were dis-enrolling because they feared deportation. Thus, eligible non-citizens are missing their opportunity to feed their children, families, or themselves. There are certain SNAP non-citizens who are eligible with no waiting period including victims, refugees, children, tribes, etc. WIC serves low-income, pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding women, infants and children up to age five. Therefore, getting eligible persons to participate in any of the various federal funded services can be done through demographics. If millions are already enrolled in SNAP and WIC they can use that data to distribute brochures according to zip codes, districts, nearby institutions like grocery stores, human services offices, DMV, schools, organizations, centers, etc. Volunteers can reach out to immigrant communities and educate them on the benefits of joining or re-joining the SNAP/WIC or other. Another option is creating a campaign in general media in various languages, make it accessible to disabled as well telling them to join the program. Make laws that protect the immigrants from deportation if they are using SNAP or others. The National Immigration Law Center can allay immigrants fears by explaining their rights to them.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

I would combine and accommodate them both if the effects are positive and efficient. If not I would discard

the old ones or modify them. The policies are also from other past Mayor’s administration that get passed down by the next Mayor. The trouble comes if the policies are not modernized, enforced or they are avoided due to the lack of funding or adequate resources. Direct Democracy and community engagement goes side by side. It is the participation of the community making a government more Democratic through electing the leaders fairly, Through enacting policies, making a true difference in their communities. Food oversight is essential. The governments oversight subcommittee discovered baby foods had “dangerous levels of toxic…” -Thus, the research and investigation paves the way for more investigations. The US Food Safety System comprises of many federal

agencies and committees – state and local groups, organizations, the FDA, FSIS, CDC, EPA, NMFS, all work in tandem at times to aid in the food safety process. Legislation regarding food system is observed by the federal, state, local, global laws and what we import, export, affects us as a whole. Every locality, state, etc has their laws. Overall, it is the informed public and supporters of food justice who will make the policies change and even form newer ones. My plan which will be detailed more in depth will certainly give more power to the people and how food is a necessity that will be enhanced by these choices. 

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

Communities of color have witnessed racism since earliest of times in history. As land laborers and slaves they toiled to produce food for the masses. Today, people of color (non-white) in the food industry are paid low wages, are discriminated and many live in poverty. The Food Justice Movement centers on the issues of food oppression, nutritional racism, food apartheid, and racial justice. It is the consequences of those injustices that we see poor nutrition, junk food marketing, food swamps, food deserts, and poverty, diseases, and mortality. Activists, lobbyists, journalists, groups, attorneys, etc can ask the government to change the laws, to educate the people on the dangers of bad nutrition and how big companies are profiting. An example, is how tobacco, alcohol was being marketed in poor communities and producing a cycle of oppression and poverty. To understand the root of the problem people need to read the history and timeline of how this is still continuing. I will ask and listen to communities of color of how they are being impacted by this and distribute surveys where they can suggest the laws or policies that should be changed or created. I will hire staff that are from the community of color so they can be part of the process of transforming to good our economy. I will set new policies that take into consideration the challenges people of color are facing. The policies and laws will be a renewal that will bring to light the truth and recover our economy.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

By analyzing the principles of food sovereignty one by one, appropriate actions to remedy the recurring problems can be taken. For instance, one principle mentions non-violence as a method to prevent genocide, racism, and poverty due to violence in wars, ethnic conflicts,. This violence can be mitigated by preventing violence with laws and policies that give equal access to tribal, or marginalized communities. The disadvantaged can instead of conflict find the factors that more likely can resolve the food insecurity. Not only due to racial differences but look towards: Seniors, disabled, children, etc -how to offer services, grow their own healthy food, recreation, affordable housing, transportation, new infrastructure, all these and more. It is not only funding but diminishing corruption, more accountability, honesty, investigations.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

The Good Food Purchasing Program seems like a reasonable diversified policy, suggestions, guidelines, principles and the agencies collaboration makes it more unified in the mission to help reduce hunger. I would strengthen the good food project by adding more policies and partners in participation. Connecting with the local, national organizations, agencies, sectors, teams, that are making this a reality. I would construct a system that monitors the progress of

the program and make it accessible to the general public -so others can pitch in and even donate. New technologies are also needed.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

It is extremely important, billions of lives are affected on the state, local and global level. The options of school food is not only about how palatable the meal tastes but of its overall nutritional value. Students should have a positive food experience where they remember positive memories instead of horrendous ones. Culturally appropriate food in schools introduces students to cultural diversity and new tastes. As I emphasized before, funding should go to invest in the continual improvement of the food industry.The attorney general, school nutrition specialists, organizations, associations can pair up for the cause. Food quality assurance, food grading, school lunch guidelines, etc..should be examined regularly and updated as needed. Offer reduced, discounted or free meals such as by the National School Lunch Program. Schools can give out brochures, courses, nutrition education to teach kids and parents about healthy foods and parents can decide to prepare or purchase their kid’s lunch. Without proper nutrition grades fail, students can become sick and their well-being endangered. Each school district can be analyzed for: nutritious food, cultural food, food safety, how it is being processed and delivered to the students. Even call 311 for school food complaints regarding its cost, menu quality/quantity and so on.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

Institutional meals are meals served at institutions such as schools, senior centers, hospitals, day care, clubs, ships, airports, correctional facilities, jails, shelters and more. The food sector to begin with should make sure foods being

produced are healthy for the population as a whole. Unhealthy foods leads to diseases, and serious health

problems even death. Lack of food leads to violence and crimes, such as theft and rioting. Parents, health experts have claimed that schools are providing children with junk food (non-nutritional) making children obese, to have heart attacks, etc. That is why complaints were brought up to the FDA and USDA and changes were made in schools. Prison foods are said to be highly unhealthy and taxpayers then have to pay the costs if prisoners get ill. Taxpayers pay billions in healthcare for prison inmates. Even hospital food is said to be uneatable. The quality of food, food safety and nutrition are part of what makes food to be graded. Nonetheless, a food must be safe and nutritious not merely taste delicious. Each department (dept. of education, federal bureau of prisons, dept. of homeless,….) should be aware of the statistics of food nutrition and a sustainable food system. Countless lawsuits in diverse sectors shows the urgency of this world food system health crisis. Instead of institutions wanting to cut costs by purchasing bulk foods, processed foods, without proper nutrition – they should switch to foods not detrimental to the health of

the person. Eating healthy is said to be NON-GMO, organic, fair trade but more studies are needed to prove it. The funding should go to foods that are beneficial. Big food as numerous newspapers say is making people sick and as long as the industries are profiting, health is at risk. That is why state, local, federal laws need to point on the evidence of how unhealthy foods are creating an economic and health crisis.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

Millions of people are seniors and if one sees the data of senior centers and non-profit community based organizations we can see they are scattered by district and some are faring well while others are in need of more

assistance in funding. Funding for infrastructure, events, meals, activities, plans, etc. Likewise, home delivered meal providers need funding from donors, groups, the city, federal funds. It depends on the situation and policies of who to receive funds from. Now due to COVID19 and more technologically savvy persons, the home delivered meal service is helping millions and the online meal kit delivery generates billions in revenue.

If there are organizations or meal providers that are at risk of losing their business they can merge with others 

and expand their services. They can pair up with other senior centers, grocery delivery services, etc. There should be volunteers or paid persons making potential customers aware of the business. Check demand and supply, consult with an industry specialist to see if it all is correct. The safety and laws to follow. With the pandemic people will see new methods to handle this and take preventive and profitable ways to get the system working again.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

Food workers consist of workers in varied categories such as waiters, fast food workers, cafeteria servers, and more within the food industry. Their problems are various specially when they are discriminated due to their color, disability, age, gender, societal level, immigration status, etc. Multitudes are not given fair wages nor paid sick leave,

many are not promoted, are harassed, and work in unsafe conditions. The worst outcomes they have are: Severe work injuries, death, deportation, exploitation, unreasonably long hours of work, inhospitable work environment, etc. First, I would want them to be treated with respect and equality regardless of their salary or other. Workplace rules should enforce the rule strictly with penalties for disobedience. Lawsuits have shown how workers have taken action against those injustices. However, some are afraid to come forward due to their undocumented status or fear of losing their jobs. There should be a whistleblower protection law that includes all workers and that each workplace follow the worker’s rights laws and permit unions to organize. Laws to increase wages and offer paid, emergency sick leave particularly during COVID19 when numerous workers were infected and others sadly passed away. Workers can join alliances, unions, associates, organizations, that will help them in whatever necessity they have encountered. In order for laws that protect workers to be followed there has to be agencies or supervisors, surveillance cameras, investigative teams, checking if in reality the laws are taking effect.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

I would gather all specialists in the diverse sectors to give their recommendations, suggestions, knowledge, on how best to formulate plans that work. It starts by local, national, global laws to change the food system and inequalities. We need a system that delivers healthy, affordable, multicultural food that covers all types of persons and

their individual needs. We need big food companies to become accountable for the health of the masses. Therefore, the marketing directed at children and disadvantaged communities can exacerbate the problem. We can see it in the global markets of tobacco and alcohol and how the industry had to display the warning FDA labels regarding cancer. In the same manner, food should have warning labels. The label ordinance was battled by the food industry versus judges, attorneys -the bills if passed could make companies change the unhealthy ingredients.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Oatmeal.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

The one word is “Production” since the food system is continually producing a wide array of foods but other words could be transportation, processing, investing, environment, nutrition, partnerships, laws, policies, demographics all that results in the ongoing circulation of the system itself.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

In New York City, one of the most wealthy and costly cities of the world, more than a million New Yorkers—including 1 in every 5 children—were experiencing food insecurity prior to the pandemic. Tragically, the men and women who work in our restaurants often struggle to put food on the table at home, and have faced job losses and uncertainty during the last year of the pandemic. The Bronx, is the hub of New York’s food infrastructure, yet suffers from the highest rates of food insecurity per capita and the lowest ratio of senior center capacity to older adult residents. Meanwhile, research shows that more than half of the food we discard is edible. Food was an emergency long before Kathryn Garcia was named Food Czar to help. 

Solving the food crisis will be a priority in a Garcia Administration. We will:

Address the root of the problem. Food insecurity is deeply tied to unemployment. Even if we produce enough food, we need better jobs with higher wages to ensure workers don’t go to bed hungry. We will double down on job growth and economic mobility.

Increase funding to support food programs, with a focus on funding equity across all neighborhoods and providers and inclusion of all New Yorkers that experience food insecurity: older adults, families, undocumented NYers, students, people experiencing homelessness, veterans and others.

Shorten the commute to buy or pick up healthy food. We will invest dollars to incentivize and develop infrastructure (senior centers, grocery stores, pantries, community-based models) in underserved neighborhoods. Moreover, we need to fund fresh and culturally relevant food—not just canned goods. We will expand our emergency food program to provide fresh food for the most vulnerable New Yorkers. We can’t solve for hunger without solving for culturally appropriate options.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

We will:

Enroll 100% of eligible NYers for SNAP benefits. During COVID19, NYC saw a 12% increase in people receiving SNAP benefits just over the course of four months—nearly $200M dollars to fight hunger. We will also support more retailers to accept SNAP benefits; every penny paid by the federal government can also help boost our local economy and food businesses. 

Eliminate repetitive, time-consuming, and convoluted benefit application processes. New Yorkers should be able to apply for benefits on a smartphone–or the process isn’t working. With universal broadband, we will make it easier for NYers to access nutrition benefits. 

Call on Congress to permanently expand SNAP by 15% and expand coverage to include prepared meals, delivery fees and membership fees for bulk shopping programs, including for students. SNAP recipients deserve the dignity of a warm meal and should be able to make the most of their benefits. We will also support retailers to expand the online SNAP pilot program. 

Support New Yorkers who are not eligible for SNAP with voucher programs that provide choice and dignity and boost local community-based solutions, including expanding Health Bucks.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

Kathryn would re-establish a dedicated, interdisciplinary food team with procurement capacity—at the level of what we built during COVID19—to institutionalize addressing food access and insecurity, and bring together disparate and uncoordinated programs within agencies under different Deputy Mayors.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

The food system is intricately connected to the nation’s history of racism. Our agricultural economy directly stems from a legacy of enslavement of Black people, and has had generational impacts on land access and capital for food production. Food insecurity and lack of access to fresh and healthy food in a given neighborhood (ie: areas in which the primary food suppliers are small corner stores with a very limited selection of goods) are products of historical injustices in housing and planning practices that created unequal investment and resources.

For a more equitable food system, we will:

Ensure City feeding programs contract with diverse vendors, seek out feedback from underrepresented populations during program design and execution, and strive to provide culturally-appropriate food

Elevate and empower community-based solutions and organizations that serve underrepresented populations, rather than replacing or complicating their efforts

Support food supply chains focused on ethnic products, labor protections for food workers, and purchasing requirements to work with MWBE farmers

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

The need for emergency food in New York City is evidence of failure of several steps and resources higher up the chain. Doubling down on food pantries isn’t a long term solution to help New York City families and workers be able to afford a nutritious, dignified meal. 

Instead, we need to make it cheaper and easier to buy a nutritious meal in your community. We need nutritious food to be at a competitive price point with junk food. We will subsidize meals at community restaurants that are vehicles for job training and re-investment in community to provide a nutritious, affordable option.

Fundamentally, we need to execute on the 4 strategies outlined above in the SNAP question and enroll 100% of eligible NYers for SNAP benefits.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

As Food Czar, Kathryn saw first hand the importance of procurement decision making to support the local food economy. 

As Mayor, she will:

Encourage the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing program across the region and fund the New York State Farm to School Purchasing Incentive. We must build a resilient, equitable and sustainable food system. We can lower the carbon footprint in our food supply by strengthening our reliance on our regional food economy.

Be better prepared for future emergencies, with a continuous food supply chain monitoring and early warning system, technical assistance for business to develop continuity of operations plans, capacity building within nonprofits to receive federal funding, and robust emergency feeding operations plan.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

In too many schools, our teachers are faced with kids that may not have had enough to eat at home or may not have a home at all. We will be hyper focused on the 140 schools with more than 20% of homeless students. Schools are not just centers of learning, they are centers for community support. We will ensure that schools are safe and offer services and stability for families, not just students. 

Kathryn supports universal breakfast and permanent grab and go meals for adults. She will work with OFNS to improve school meal quality and options.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

For school meals, Kathryn supports and will execute the proposal outlined in the 10 Year Food Plan: “Access to healthy, whole foods is a priority for NYC public schools, as such meals provided to our students should be cooked from a primarily scratch menu. All City schools should aim to serve fresh meals made from ingredients in their most basic form, prepared at or near the site of consumption, as often as possible.”

For senior meals, it is clear that the current system is not working – as evidenced by the significant demand for senior meals during the COVID-19 Emergency GetFood program from areas that were not served by senior centers. The key here is to expand senior center infrastructure and home delivery services that can serve high quality, culturally appropriate meals.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

We need to build capacity of community-based organizations (CBOs) that support local food supply chains. CBOs are typically best positioned to serve as the connections between local community needs and broad City implementation. Many CBOs already serve as emergency food providers or community development corporations providing business assistance, and frequently both. Many also have pre-existing arrangements and contacts with the City. This effort should build the capacity of CBOs to act as the conduit between the City and local food ecosystems by:

Identify CBOs with pre-existing relationships with the City and CBOs with relevant expertise in target communities and build/augment relationships with them

Support expansion of food hubs, such as Central Brooklyn Food Hub

Build CBO’s emergency capacity to support future response efforts. For example, continue and expand emergency management volunteer capacity building efforts.

Partner with select CBOs and the philanthropic community to pilot new types of food solutions such as coops, people’s restaurants, etc. The City can then leverage the learning from those pilots to shape CIty and philanthropic support for broader implementation of these models.

Provide CBOs with technical assistance and training on relevant business models such as purchasing food, launching food coops, community kitchens, etc.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

COVID19’s central food challenge related not to issues with the supply of a specific product but to the ability of food workers to safely do their job and be compensated accordingly. It particularly highlighted the challenges facing the many undocumented workers in the food sector, gig workers providing delivery, farm workers and low income food retail workers. However the City’s ability to support these workers was hindered by a lack of visibility into their working conditions. While some levers are outside of direct municipal control, there are some efforts the City can take to materially improve the conditions of food workers.

We can develop a program to allow employee cooperative buy-backs of food businesses. Restaurateurs predicted a 72 percent chance of survival if the crisis lasted one month, but only a 15% chance of survival if the crisis lasts for six months. Without substantial additional federal stimulus assistance, many restaurants in NYC may not be able to weather the pandemic. The City should provide a pathway for workers to cooperatively buy back businesses if owners decide to close or sell the establishment.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

We will:

Support and grow urban agriculture. From rooftop gardens and hydroponic systems to schoolyard green spaces and production farms, we need a resilient urban agriculture system that provides opportunities for green infrastructure, green jobs, stewardship and education. 

Construct the GrowNYC Regional Food Hub to provide much-needed modern and energy efficient cold storage to serve local food distribution.

Fight food waste. Support community composting and incentivize donating unsold food—and levy fines for noncompliant businesses.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

To celebrate that we won the “bagel vote” – an everything bagel – open face – with cream cheese, a slice of tomato, capers, lox, and onion, from Bagel Hole in Brooklyn.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Opportunity.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

I would like to create a meal program and delivery service from restaurants and grocery stores surplus before it has the opportunity to spoil to deliver to those in need of food. This can become a credit system for the businesses (taxes and income by being paid by the “city” through partnerships with large businesses and corporations that are located in NYC – especially Wall Street and Financial Institutions.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

For starters, I would like to clean out the inefficiencies within the programs and call upon our local businesses and institutions to additionally fund and expand these programs, or create mirrored programs. Additionally, I would like to make sure that those who need these programs are reached, the actual eligible persons as well.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

I would do both. First I would definitely declare the priority in Food Policy (no New Yorker goes hungry, education on food allergies and restrictions, as well as information on portioning, etc.), and create a coalition of local New Yorkers who are represent all the neighborhoods and communities of NYC where there is a partnership that creates transparency and accountability to the people of NYC. Second I would create better, stronger and transparent partnerships with the private sector to create these systems that can be funded outside of political and bureaucratic control. Through these partnerships and platforms we will create marketing initiatives to foster more community engagement and direct democracy. Third, I would appoint Public Health to be oversight of the agencies, and massive, private, non-profit groups. We need a better management and operational system that can be more effective and efficient to serve the actual people who need to benefit.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

As I previously mentioned, I want to create a coalition or council of local New Yorkers made up of people who are elected every 2 to 4 years (limited to 2 terms) from a representative of the different 300 plus neighborhoods, each culture and all the different communities (and I do mean all of them). Additionally we will add a single elected person from each local branch of government, agency and department to oversee and report to the millions of New Yorkers. We will address structural racism and all forms of corruption within the system through exposing all truths and information uncovered directly to the people through a digital platform that will allow reporting (an app or use existing public access channels), which can also allow voting by the people on how to address discovered problems. This can be a crowd-sourcing platform to have the community to present solutions and collaborations.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

At the very beginning of my administration we will declare a new charter / ACT that is similar to the Future Generations Act in Whales, UK. Within this ACT we will declare what New York stands on – for example; We believe that all New Yorkers must have clear access to Basic Human Rights & Needs, Public Health & Wellness, Community & Culture, and we believe in Ethics & Communication. We rebuild our foundation of the city where we can build upon with security and consciousness. As we are establishing this, we will also audit all aspects of the systems to identify all the inefficiencies and corruption to remove systemic and long term food insecurity. Enforcing our current rules, creating new ones, and holding those accountable for breaking their integrity with New York City.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

This is exactly what I support and want to champion. We need to expand and grow this Program, but again add transparency and accountability to remove as many possibilities of inefficiencies and corruption. This will be backed, supported, and enforced through the ACT I intend to create here in NYC that will establish a new minimally acceptable human experience.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

As a person with Food Allergies and Entrepreneur (former owner of a daily delivery meal program), this personally resonates with me, as I find nutrition and access to what one needs a paramount of importance. Portion control is exponentially important as well. This is a priority under what I seek to establish for NYC and that being a New Minimal Acceptable Human Experience. Everyone has different needs and we all know that what we eat is the fuel for our bodies, which creates the energy we need to operate and use our attention. We will expand and evolve this for students and provide them with access to learn what is best for them and their nutrition through integration with nutritionists and public health doctors in collaboration with families and parents. We all deserve to be healthy and educated on options.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

It’s time for more transparency and accountability to the people of NYC and access with food vendors to higher quality foods, even collaborations with our local and national celebrity chefs. I believe the Food Network has a base here and we should capitalize on that opportunity.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

Then we must audit their operations and improve on their systems to expand its operations and capabilities along with innovative approaches to maximise its impact. Therefore; we must get more abilities and access for them through less red tape and more funding, again, through seeking investment from our local community (the private sector). Many companies grow and prosper here as a benefit of the Financial Markets (and other NYC unique sectors) and I feel with the right conversations and relationships we can create a separate fund from them to increase capacities of these programs.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

This falls back to transparency and accountability through ethical practices. We must have an “audit” done to create more transparency to the public so that we can, first hand, see what is happening and have enforceable repercussions for violating any food worker’s treatment. We can also provide them with a review system to grade them along with increasing their pay with the use of a City Coin that will provide equity that they can potentially borrow against.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

We have to start with education and marketing. Teach and influence through partnerships and cultural phenomenon that will inspire this effort and create incentives to fortify it through tax benefits and use of a City Coin (Blockchain) Currency.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

I actually fast and only eat dinner each day. Last night I had hummus, some grilled seafood, and eggplant.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Outdated.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

It is important to understand that poverty is designed and hunger is a symptom of that design. We don’t have a resource issue; we have a vision and design issue. An integrated and holistic approach to food justice involves a reshaping of NYC policies that understands the role of large scale poverty reduction, secure housing, the reduction and eventual elimination of unemployment, and access to nutrition. It is why my Green Jobs, Green Food, Green Justice platform weaves security in employment, food and safety together. To decrease poverty, I would employ an intersectional strategic plan that addresses climate, food, health, and housing inequities. Poverty and hunger are persistent issues that are exacerbated by food security and emergency models that use underserved communities as dumping grounds for food bound for waste or surplus from an extractive economy. My administration would design a city budget that builds on community-led innovation and enterprise, and shifts policy and resources to community land trusts for urban ag production, community-based food hubs (including processing and packing facilities), and stronger ties to our regional food and watershed. These efforts would support job creation, business development, healthy food systems, and resilient communities -in particular in the most vulnerable communities of NYC. Food justice and sovereignty models support rural and hyper local ag production, self determined community food models – that is proven. Improved dissemination of existing funds out of emergency models and into these models would provide immediate solutions to food insecurity as well as support ways to dismantle persistent hunger and poverty.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

Being on the ground as part of mutual aid efforts, I witnessed first hand how food access during this pandemic has been a challenge. And it’s not just about the food itself, but how to better connect with New Yorkers vital information. In my first 100 days, I’m launching NYC 5000, a five borough culturally-responsive intervention strategy to connect New Yorkers with the critical support they need in light of the pandemic and the poor vaccine roll-out that disproportionately impacted Black, Brown and immigrant communities. Part of this effort will include language access strategies to enable more of our neighbors to become aware and take advantage of city, state and federal aide programs, including SNAP and WIC. Other step I would take include:

• Increase discretionary city funding to capacity building food justice organizations such as Just Food that provide technical assistance and SNAP/EBT training to nonprofits, community leaders, and farmers to become SNAP/EBT eligible. 
• Replicate initiatives such as efforts in MA around increasing electronic redemption of SNAP/EBT, WIC, Healthbucks, FMNP, and other food based incentives on benefit cards at direct farm to consumer models such as CSAs, farmers markets, farm stands, and farm shares. 
• Increase funding for free/ low cost SNAP/EBT wireless equipment to CSAs, Farmers Markets, and farmers. 
• Increase funding for trainings and community mini grants to help cover operational costs for accepting SNAP/EBT at community food models 
• Cross promotion of healthy food farmers markets, CSAs, food hubs, co-ops and ability to use/ redeem SNAP/EBT benefits at city agencies and their outreach offices.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

My Green Jobs, Green Food and Green Justice plan ties areas often separated, yet inextricably connected. Informed by food justice activists, organizers and practitioners, it calls for the city to shift to a comprehensive and equitable food plan rooted in resiliency in climate, food, and enterprise. Some of my strategies include:

Amplifying strategies that we know work, like Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), farmers markets, cooperatives, community based food hubs and community land trusts; (Brooklyn Packers, Brooklyn Movement Center – Central Brooklyn Food Coop, Just Food)

Establishing an Office of Urban Agriculture run by actual urban farmers, not urban planners, and focused on empowering small and mid-sized farmers–especially Black and Brown growers;

Significantly Increase Funding to sustainable, community organizations–whose methods, practices and language have often been co-opted by larger non-profit organizations who provide immediate free food, but very little long term vision on eradicating poverty with sustaining infrastructure;

Provide technical assistance for regional growers to compete for larger procurement contracts and other sourcing opportunities–and provide resources to organizations like Just Food that are invested in equitable distribution to smaller community models and organizations

We need a NYC version of the Green New Deal that includes a workforce pipeline into urban gardening, sustainability and renewable energy; also align opportunities for MWBEs. In its current power structure, this office could leverage its intra-agency capacity to support urban ag and food policy on a deeper level in the city. I believe the Office of Food Policy can be expanded, but bigger consideration is the level of power within the office. Food continues to be addressed in city government as a siloed issue. It is intersectional and also needs to be connected to our city’s climate resiliency. Under my administration, the Food Policy Director would be someone with food and social justice experience and have a team of people with experience in urban planning, food justice, and solidarity economy, policy, and food systems–very different from the current Director who has mainly emergency food experience and a fractured racial equity lens- which has led the city into the disenfranchising food plan executed during COVID. 

Moving from food emergency to food equity would also mean working closely with CBOs and seeing them as the main drivers of citywide efforts. As mayor, I would invest $25 million to food innovation and sustainability programs in communities of color.

Brown entrepreneurs seeking to enter the urban agriculture

And we need to create ownership models for NYCHA residents, which not only enables them to drive how vacant lots in their areas are designated, but also enables more solidarity economies including cooperatives and quality green spaces

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

Whereas other candidates have focused on continued focus on emergency relief, I am focused on how to disrupt the cycle of poverty, the complicity of our systems exacerbating the haves and the never had, and moving towards a sustainable green ecosystem. As outlined in the prior question, the reason why it’s important to hire a Mayor with an equity lens is because such a leader uses the data and invites those most impacted to the table. No solution around justice–including food justice–can happen without the communities currently living with, and addressing, the issues. This co-governance model is essential if we’re serious about food equity.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

The implementation of GFP standards and enforcing metrics met within City agencies is a constructive step forward increasing equity within the NYC food system. I do believe in the power of GFP practices; however, it will struggle to be fully implemented in NYC without genuine engagement of food justice, labor justice, and other regional stakeholders. Genuine food economy infrastructure and logistics such as community based food hubs, processing facilities, commercial shared kitchens, and greenhouses in urban spaces, and better value chains between rural partners are needed. Urban ag policy that supports new innovative and cooperative land stewardship of city own land and enterprise is also needed. We cannot predominantly support or rely on the private sector to build urban infrastructure. They focus on just rooftop gardens and hydroponics which are high cost, heavy infrastructure, limited bounty, and limited opportunities for communities of color. Improved policies between city and state to support urban enterprise and profit made on city owned land is also needed to genuinely promote land stewardship, revenue generation, in particular to communities of color or low income. Black and Brown communities will continue to get left out of green jobs and be pushed out of their neighborhoods by gentrification without better urban ag and food policy in the city. It is why my Green Jobs, Green Food, Green Justice effort revolves around people-powered, community-centered leadership and I hope to deepen GFP’s alignment with the public, more than the private.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

School food is an important aspect of food justice. 52.9% of NYC’s K-12 public school youth receive free or reduced nourishment. Dignity in food is essential to ensuring our most vulnerable aren’t discriminated against simply because they are poor. Furthermore, children with food allergies, religious considerations or disabilities should not have to worry whether or not they can eat properly while trying to learn. One major move I’d make is to move away from corporate food supply chains and invest in local food experts, chefs and culturally relevant nutritionists. In addition to seeing themselves reflected in their places of learning, this shift helps us empower local businesses–crucial in the midst of the current pandemic. As the only candidate with a commitment to address education equity within my first 100 days, I’d ensure food justice is included in policy discussions with young people, family members and community leaders. Finally, urban ag is a field that should be integrated in our school curriculum and career options–which is part of my Green Jobs, Green Food, Green Justice pipeline strategy. 

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

Specific actions I’d take include:

Support culturally relevant nutrition education training and menu planning for school food coordinators and procurement officials;

Increase DOE Farm to School cafe program to include procuring from hyperlocal farmers/growers as well as BIPOC farmers/producers in the region; 

Hire a food systems consultant with racial and regional lens to support better integration of GFP practices and cultural relevant measures in the procurement process;

Create smaller bid opportunities for support procurement of culturally relevant and seasonal items in our region;

No longer make this a behind the scenes decision, and move from a paternalistic model to one about dignity and sovereignty by engaging those who receive institutional meals.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

In three ways: Fund. Collaborate. Build:

More funding to support organizations to fill in the gaps around healthy, fresh food such as logistics partners and underutilized restaurant labor force. 

Encourage collaborations with mutual aid efforts to pivot their labor and capacity to support ongoing initiatives and services. 

Invest in a care economy model, building workforce pipelines to reach more of our neighbors and better support elder care professionals, serve seniors and homebound New Yorkers with empathetic care.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

Food workers have been some of the most impacted individuals throughout the pandemic, and were subject to poor working conditions and protections long before. Food workers have been on the front-lines and have been functioning as the backbone of our city. It is time that we treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

Support for undocumented workers and ensuring access to relief funds from the city for those who do not qualify for state/federal resources;

Healthcare for all;

Guaranteed minimum income; 

Support for worker owned cooperatives;

Support for unionization;

Increased presence and inclusion in policymaking spaces.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

There are community members who are already doing the work of finding and contributing to long-term solutions to food inequities. I have proposed allocating $25 million to help aid the existing community efforts to build sustainable food sovereignty. This money would specifically go toward supporting communities of color with food production, processing, and distribution. By supporting these existing initiatives within communities directly, we would be able to forge a system that gets at the root cause, rather than one that actually creates more reliance on charity – furthering the problem.

Resources must be allocated to:

Capacity building organization that provide technical assistance and food and economic justice organizations with proven history and community relationships

Support of cooperative businesses – i.e. worker cooperatives, producer cooperatives within the food and ag sector

Build community based food hubs in each borough such as shared community kitchen spaces that are affordable

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Hawthorne Valley Farm Maple Yogurt, She Wolf Bakery bread, Back to the Future eggs, and veggies from Nolasco Farm – all from the local farmers market.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Inequitable.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

There is no excuse for a single person to go hungry in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, yet nearly 2 million New Yorkers need assistance to consistently access the food they need. The pandemic has only heightened our hunger crisis — layoffs, low-wages, a lack of workplace protections, and high rent have pushed hundreds of thousands into the impossible position of making choices between putting food on the table and paying down the bills. We have to tackle the affordability crisis head-on, and make it easier for working people to gain a foothold and thrive in our city. 

I’ve laid out a vision and detailed plans to do just that, starting on Day One. From building the next generation of affordable housing, to launching the largest universal affordable child care effort in the country, to investing in workforce development, my approach is about breaking the City out of its silos and taking on the roots of our challenges.

When it comes to food security, as Manhattan Borough President, I was one of the first city officials to see food as a critical citywide issue and offered a roadmap to eradicate hunger. I issued landmark plans including “The Politics of Food” in 2008 and “Food NYC” in 2010, worked with community-based organizations to publish a cookbook promoting healthy recipes from local chefs, launched “Go Green” programs to encourage the growth of farmers markets, and invested in “Veggie Vans” which delivered $10 bags of fresh produce to under-served neighborhoods — starting in East Harlem, and expanding to the Lower East Side and Washington Heights. And as Comptroller, my office also proposed and outlined a pilot program to bring kosher and halal school lunch to New York City schools in partnership with stakeholders, and got the program up-and-running.

To address soaring rates of hunger, in May, I joined with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to demand the City immediately ramp up and streamline emergency food programs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This month, I laid out a roadmap to combat hunger in New York City, which includes proposals to:

• Create an emergency food program to serve undocumented New Yorkers. The City should direct at least $25 million of the estimated $1 billion in FEMA reimbursements released by the Biden administration to create food security programs for immigrant New Yorkers who have been left out of other safety net programs due to immigration status.
• Expand, streamline and improve outreach to ensure all eligible New Yorkers are receiving SNAP benefits and other social supports. The City should create a comprehensive, coordinated, citywide outreach campaign, increase funding for community-based organizations, and create one central online portal to support New Yorkers applying for multiple benefits.
• Increase where and how EBT cards can be used. The City should create a “shared delivery zone” program that allows neighbors to accept food deliveries from online retailers at a central location, leveraging purchasing power to share costs; and the City should support expanded use of SNAP benefits at green carts, bodegas, and local merchants like halal and kosher butchers by working to subsidize the cost of EBT terminals and transaction fees. 
• Fill gaps in the City’s food pantry network. The City should be taking immediate steps to provide emergency food in the City’s food pantry desserts while planning for more permanent investments. 
• Create borough-based councils of emergency food providers, advocates, community and faith-based organizations, and mutual aid networks to partner with the City on improving food access. Advocates that work in local communities have on-the-ground knowledge of where food system gaps occur, how their communities best receive and respond to information, and how City programs could be shaped to ensure they reach the residents they are intended for. Creating borough-based councils that could regularly advise the City on its food programs and policies would strengthen the City’s work. 

LINKS:

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/halal-and-kosher-school-lunch-pilot-proposal/

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-and-public-advocate-williams-call-on-the-city-to-ramp-up-and-streamline-emergency-food-programs-amid-covid-19-pandemic/

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-unveils-comprehensive-food-security-plan-to-combat-hunger-in-new-york-city/

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

Even as the number of New Yorkers going hungry climbs, the most recent HRA data indicates that 42,000 fewer New Yorkers are receiving SNAP benefits today than in 2015. My office laid out a comprehensive food security plan earlier this month which outlines tactics the City can take to ensure all eligible New Yorkers are receiving SNAP and other benefits. The Biden Administration has authorized the increase of SNAP benefits — now it’s on the City to deliver this critical benefit to more New Yorkers.

Outreach should be combined with efforts to promote the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), senior meals, and summer meals to ensure New Yorkers are using the programs they are eligible for and entitled to. We also should provide more funding for community-based organizations (CBOs) to conduct SNAP outreach and enrollment, particularly ones with linguistic and cultural competence to reach New Yorkers across our city’s diverse neighborhoods, and ones that work with immigrants and survivors of domestic violence who may have greater barriers to accessing services due to data sharing sensitivities.

We should also increase coordination between City agencies that could identify New Yorkers as being eligible for SNAP, and use that data to inform direct outreach efforts via mail, text, or phone. On a similar note, it’s time to streamline the process of applying for multiple benefit programs by creating one online portal and simplifying the interview and paperwork processes as much as possible. 

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

The City must be more proactive when it comes to food equity and justice. When I was Manhattan Borough President, I proposed creating the Mayor’s Office of Food and Markets to build out community-based linkages and a citywide network for food growth, distribution, and waste. We need to bring that approach to ending hunger in New York City. The Mayor’s Office of Food Policy must go neighborhood by neighborhood, borough by borough and take the model we pioneered through “Go Green” to bring together stakeholders from markets, to growers, to community-based food pantries, health centers, schools and small business leaders to envision and execute a plan that addresses the whole cycle of food. That’s why, in my plan to address food insecurity, I’ve called for the creation of borough-based councils of emergency food providers, advocates, community and faith-based organizations, and mutual aid networks to partner with the City on improving food access.

The Mayor’s Office should also use the City’s procurement power to advance citywide food equity, and hold City agencies accountable for their spend to ensure we leverage City dollars to buy from regional farmers and create good food jobs.

LINKS: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-unveils-comprehensive-food-security-plan-to-combat-hunger-in-new-york-city/

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

To create a truly equitable food system that addresses existing disparities in access to healthy, fresh, affordable food, we have to take a holistic approach to dismantle systemic racism in food policy that shapes how people grow, sell, and eat food — as well as across all our public health policies from housing to jobs and small businesses, transportation and public safety. Safe, healthy housing that ends segregation around highways and peaker plants should be part of our food policy plan, just as healthy school food is part of our education and jobs plans. 

It starts at the outset with who is around the table. As mayor, I will bring stakeholders from around the city, particularly community-based organizations with experience in addressing racial disparities in food access, before January 1st, 2022, so we can get started on Day One. We already know which neighborhoods lack access to healthy and fresh food; we know where New Yorkers have the highest rate of diet-related disease; we know where environmental racism and housing segregation have depressed life expectancies for New Yorkers — it’s time to get to work.

One of the largest and most immediate challenges is in filling the gaps in our emergency food supply system, which currently leaves many communities of color out of the food network. We must work with community based organizations already on the ground to develop solutions in partnership. It’s time for the City to target investment in deeply underserved communities that need it most, and take a citywide approach to ensuring that no New Yorkers go without access to healthy, affordable food, by supporting urban farming, mobile markets, farm stands, and small businesses and restaurants who want to provide healthier food, and more. In addition, if we’re going to encourage uptake of food programs in areas that have historically lacked access to them, the first step is engaging with the communities we hope to support. Deep consultation with communities is a core practice of my office, from working with Muslim and Jewish stakeholders to develop the City’s first-ever Halal and Kosher school food pilot program, to my housing and child care plans.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

Emergency food shouldn’t just get New Yorkers to the next day, it should be a door to helping New Yorkers get stable food and other services for the long-term. The first step is changing the City’s food policy approach because the hunger crisis requires long-term, systemic, and holistic investments.

It’s unacceptable that during the COVID-19 pandemic, one-third of food pantries have closed citywide, with the Bronx losing half of their pantries. It shows that our emergency food system needs stronger, more sustained support — and we need to think ahead to the next big crisis to ensure we have a food system that can withstand an emergency. Most importantly, we need to invest in solutions that tackle the roots of food insecurity — low wages, poor workplace protections and benefits, unaffordable housing and child care, and environmental health factors as well — to reduce the pressure on the emergency food system and turn resources to eradicating hunger. That’s why we also have to expand access to benefits to help New Yorkers not just in emergencies, but over the long-term. We need a comprehensive, citywide SNAP outreach and enrollment campaign.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

I am deeply committed to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program to support local agriculture and increase healthy food sources in our schools, jails, senior centers and other city-run facilities that provide food on a regular basis. New York City buys more food every day than any other entity outside of the U.S. military, and we should be leveraging that buying power every day to move markets and create healthier options for our kids, our seniors and everyone in between. The Good Food Purchasing Program provides a transparent, metrics-based framework that will help us consolidate our buying power while centering five core values: local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare, and nutrition. I am glad the City has started down this road, but we need to go further.

Leveraging City dollars to build up communities and improve outcomes, especially in communities of color, is something I have done in other areas. As Comptroller, one of my first acts was to appoint a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) charged with evaluating and improving the City’s M/WBE contracting. Our Chief Diversity officer has issued an annual report, “Making the Grade: New York City Agency Report Card on M/WBEs,” which assesses how well the City is creating economic access and opportunities for minority and women-owned businesses. Every report letter grades city agencies on MWBE spending and offers recommendations meant to reduce barriers and increase opportunities for M/WBEs. We also looked inward, and the Comptroller’s Office CDO helped bump our office’s spend with M/WBEs from 13% to 50% over 7 years since 2014. By comparison, the City increased its spending from 6% to 16% during this time. 

The Mayor has recently adopted our recommendations to appoint CDOs in City Agencies. In a Stringer Administration, we’ll apply these lessons to Good Food purchasing across city agencies to ensure our purchasing power supports local agriculture, invigorates the local economy, and creates better health outcomes.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

The Department of Education spends more than $200 million annually on food — serving more than 172 million meals and snacks each year to 1.1 million students. I’m a public school dad of two young boys — school food is deeply important to me. 

I have long been an advocate for Halal and Kosher food programs in schools. Thirty-eight percent of students are Muslim or Jewish, and approximately 72% of New York City students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, which indicates that many students may experience food instability and cannot rely on a packed lunch each day. Children shouldn’t be forced to choose between their religion and going hungry. And parents shouldn’t need to choose between spending extra money on school lunches and paying the rent. 

That’s why in 2018, I brought together a diverse coalition of Jewish and Muslim leaders, community advocates and students to organize around expanding universal free school lunches to include kosher and halal food. My office also proposed and outlined a pilot program to bring kosher and halal school lunch to New York City schools in partnership with stakeholders, and got the program up-and-running. And we need to increase participation and uptake beyond school lunch to school breakfast and after-school meals.

We can also connect local schools to local farms and food producers, working both to bring healthier food to our schools, while reducing our carbon footprint and using procurement power to uplight local producers. 

LINKS:

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-and-community-leaders-organize-for-halal-and-kosher-school-lunches/

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/halal-and-kosher-school-lunch-pilot-proposal/

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

At a time when Covid-19 has exposed deep health disparities across our city, the Good Food Purchasing Program offers a smart, strategic approach to improving the food we serve in all our agencies, and especially our schools. Rather than using our extraordinary buying power to prop up today’s wasteful, archaic system that too often serves nutritionally deficient meals, we can use that power to create healthier, more sustainable food programs, and connect our city agencies to upstate farmers.

We need to fundamentally re-think our food programs that put more emphasis on meals than money. I am encouraged by the progress being made in other cities to advance Good Food Purchasing. In Los Angeles, for instance, the school district has shifted more than $30 million in its food budget annually to purchases of local food. This has generated jobs, increased wages and reduced the school’s carbon footprint, all while exceeding federal child nutrition standards. New York City should be a leader in advancing the goals of Good Food Purchasing, and under my watch it will be.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

As Mayor, I’ll work to maximize the participation of non-profit community-based organizations and senior service providers in the emergency food network. These are organizations and providers that understand their clients and are best positioned to deliver both health meals and wrap-around services. Our nonprofits are the City’s partners — on the frontlines of providing for New Yorkers in need — and they must be treated as such, not overlooked for the cheapest bidder. As Comptroller, I’ve consistently advocated for procurement reforms that would fix the City’s broken approach to non-profit contracting. 

LINKS:

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-urges-city-to-stop-shortchanging-nonprofits-on-the-frontlines-of-covid-relief/

https://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7801-fixing-the-city-rsquo-s-broken-approach-to-nonprofit-contracting

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

Our City’s recovery depends on the food sector’s recovery. Pre-pandemic, our city’s restaurants and bars employed 325,000 people. Over the last year the industry has lost more than 160,000 jobs. The next mayor has the responsibility to not just bring back these jobs — but to make sure these are good, family-sustaining jobs. That’s why as mayor, I will support legislation to increase wages, benefits, and protections for food service workers and enforce our hard fought labor laws including the Fair Workweek Act and the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act. 

Under my watch, the City will support partnerships between local organizations and academic programs at CUNY that offer credit-bearing courses and certificates related to the food sector, helping to develop a sustainable network between higher-education and jobs. We can also support the creation of more Food Business Incubators to help foster entrepreneurship by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, professional equipment, and business guidance.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

As Mayor, I’ll work with community and grassroots groups to invest in needed infrastructure, while centering communities of color. That includes using the City’s procurement power to ramp up and expand initiatives that support urban and regional agriculture — replicating the model of the Hunts Point Greenmarket to create micro-hubs in every borough. This will increase equity, sustainability, and resiliency while creating new market opportunities, jobs, and combating food swamps. Moreover, a deeper network of community gardens and markets can help to expand composting, and play a role in fighting against climate change by mitigating environmental damage from poor air quality, flooding, and heat.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Coffee and a bagel.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Inequitable.

In New York City, 1.2 million residents were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that number has increased to around 2 million. How would you decrease poverty and end hunger in New York City?

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the glaring socioeconomic and racial disparities in our City that contribute to food insecurity. As mayor, I will affirm access to food as a basic right that must be equitably distributed. To protect this right, we have to target fundamental causes of food insecurity including persistent poverty and growing inequality.

My goal is to make New York the leading anti-poverty City. We will create a universal basic income system providing the most needy 500,000 New Yorkers an average of $2,000 per year in cash relief. As will be discussed in more detail below, we will couple this financial relief with a commitment to building a sustainable local food capacity that will ensure no New Yorker goes hungry. Our goal is to create a system that is flexible and prepared to respond to future crises while providing stable access to both enough food and enough nutritious food.

What specific steps will you take to increase the participation of eligible New Yorkers in federally-funded programs such as SNAP and WIC?

SNAP and WIC are crucial components of the food security safety net. Not only do we need to increase participation, we also need to make it easier for New Yorkers to participate. My administration will coordinate with New York State to create a streamlined process under which individuals can apply for several federal, state, and City-level safety net and nutrition programs simultaneously. We will also advocate for reforms to increase WIC and SNAP recipients’ access to online grocery shopping and Farmer’s Markets, including providing support to participating merchants themselves.

To increase participation, I will target outreach and educational initiatives towards disproportionately-impacted communities. To identify areas with the most need, I will advocate for data-sharing agreements among state and City agencies, and partner with local community leaders and nonprofits. We will also ensure the availability of language- and culturally-appropriate messaging and educational materials. We have to be proactive about advertising these programs in the communities that need them most, and ensuring that enrollment is simple and accessible.

Would you increase the administrative power of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy or would you provide a different structure for New York City food oversight? Please specifically include how your plan would a) enhance mechanisms for community engagement and direct democracy and b) unify the City’s public policies related to food (that are currently split among many different agencies and many massive, private, non-profit groups)?

To ensure that food is provided equitably by the ten City agencies routinely purchasing and serving meals, my administration will strengthen and expand the Mayor’s Office of Food policy. The Food Czar team launched as part of Covid-19 response efforts shows that inter-agency, centralized oversight is effective, and serves as a good model. 

However, streamlining oversight is not enough–we have to engage stakeholders across the community to ensure New Yorkers’ needs are being met. My administration will convene a food policy council with community representatives, farmers, distributors, independent restaurant owners, and other stakeholders to serve as a formal source of feedback and advice. We will also meet regularly with community members and provide a centralized platform for New Yorkers to direct complaints and feedback about food-related issues.

How will you ensure the lived-experiences and expertise of communities of color are incorporated into the development and implementation of policies to build a more equitable food system? How will your policies approach the structural racism that exists in our food system?

My administration is committed to giving members of communities of color both a voice in designing our policy and a say in its outcome. 

Structural racism contributes to food insecurity in innumerable ways, from housing policy that reinforces food deserts to employment discrimination and wage theft against food sector employees. My administration will take a comprehensive approach to equity starting first with the representation of members of vulnerable communities in my administration and on advisory bodies, and regular engagement with local communities. We will work to address upstream causes of food insecurity, including reducing poverty with my Universal Basic Income plan. I will also increase investment in preventive health services, education, and social support services in vulnerable communities. In order to track the effectiveness of these policies and identify communities with the most need, we must also collect better data on food security and nutrition-related inequities.

How do you plan to invest in long-term food sovereignty in NYC that moves away from the current investment in Emergency Food as a response to systemic and long term food insecurity?

New York needs a proactive, sustained investment in local food security infrastructure. My administration will prioritize contracts to NYC-based food and hospitality businesses, and will fund and support food cooperatives and other community-based sources of food. The USDA/NIFA Community Food Project model is an excellent example of what I hope to achieve. We will also encourage the establishment and growth of local farms, in particular black-, indigenous-, and people-of-color-owned farms. Finally, we will expand local and regional food capacity, including rail and barge availability and mixed-use industrial activity within the City.

I also recognize that there are many possible crises that can interrupt New York City’s food supply. Developing a food-specific emergency plan is a priority for my administration. One lesson learned from our experience with the COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of online grocery orders and food delivery. We need to recruit and train a volunteer workforce that can rapidly mobilize in times of need, and that can reliably deliver food to vulnerable communities. We will also encourage sustained relationships between food banks and schools – even temporary school closures place children at risk of food insecurity.

Approximately 230 million meals are served annually by our NYC agencies. The Good Food Purchasing Program, which is currently in the early stages of implementation here in NYC, uses the enormous strength of our City’s food procurement power to improve the local and regional food systems in the areas of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability, local economies, nutrition, animal welfare, and meaningfully infuse racial equity and transparency practices into the food system. We want to understand your commitment to maximizing the impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program in your administration. Can you speak to the resources that you would harness to make this happen?

My administration is fully committed to City-wide implementation and maximization of the Good Food Purchasing Program. Community input is crucial at this early stage, and we will ensure that formal structures are in place for soliciting and incorporating community advice, as discussed above. We will also make sure that structures are in place to monitor procurements to assess their ongoing alignment with collective purchasing models. 

Sustained investment is crucial to the success of this program, and we will take care that funding is stable and sufficient to maximize impact. As the program grows, we will explore opportunities to expand local food infrastructure such as the Greenmarket Regional Food Hub to meet the scale of procurement.

It is important for students to have access to food that fuels them and helps them succeed in school. Students deserve school meals that are a respected, valued part of the school day as well as a wide range of food options, including Halal, Kosher, and options for people with extreme allergies. How important is school food to you? What would you do to improve the school meal quality, experience, and options?

School food is incredibly important and is an effective way to combat both food insecurity and poverty. Studies show that participation in the National Student Lunch Program reduces food insufficiency by 14%, and the program lifts 1.3 million people out of poverty – these programs must be supported and expanded.

My administration will continue the innovation spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic to improve school food. For students learning remotely, we will explore bulk food box “grab and gos” and ensure culturally-appropriate food options are available based on the needs of the community. We will also raise awareness of summer meals programs and local resources for families in need.

Incentivizing on-site food production at schools and access to nutritious, fresh products is also important for student health. We will explore farm to school programs and work to strengthen food and nutrition education in our schools.

What would you do to improve the quality and nutritional value of institutional meals provided by City agencies (e.g. school food, senior meals, etc.)?

New York City agencies provide upwards of 200 million meals each year. I will make sure that these programs are adequately funded and have equal access to quality ingredients. By centralizing oversight of City food programs and building local food infrastructure, my administration will be able to more tightly control nutritional content and encourage bulk procurement, thus lowering costs. Maximizing the Good Food Purchasing Program will help us achieve this goal, as will uniform nutritional standards for City programs.

Increasing community access to fresh food is also a priority. This could include the creation of food pantries in senior centers, community kitchens, and school gardens. Our plan must be comprehensive – maximizing centralized procurement power and standardized quality, while ensuring the freshness of food and tailoring to local needs.

How will you work to better support and expand the capacity of non-profit community-based organizations and their staff who are serving meals to older adults through the Department for the Aging, including Senior Center and home-delivered meal providers? (For context, in normal times, these chronically underfunded systems serve roughly 20,000 and 30,000 older adults respectively, and could be better utilized to expand their reach.)

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly showed the importance of a robust support system for the aging and elderly. My administration will ensure that these systems are funded appropriately to reflect the immense benefits they provide. To expand their capacity, we must recruit and train both employees and volunteers able to handle excess capacity in times of crisis. We must also be creative in our solutions, including expanding drive-through pantry bag pick-ups, encouraging seniors-only distribution hours, and increasing the number of home delivery drivers. Coordination with local nonprofits and community centers is also important in making food easily accessible for those with limited mobility.

What would you do to ensure food workers are treated equitably?

Food workers are a critical piece of our City’s infrastructure – our community could not survive or thrive without them. As essential workers on the frontlines, many of whom are employed by small businesses, food workers are also particularly vulnerable to health and economic crises. My administration will convene a focus group of food workers and other stakeholders to create a workforce development plan to improve working conditions and job security. We will also partner with labor advocacy organizations to monitor and vigorously enforce workplace safety, employment discrimination, and related regulations.

While highly-capitalized restaurants were able to invest in COVID-19 safety measures, small businesses, many of which serve vulnerable communities, struggled. Many closed for good. The City must give small businesses the financial support they need to invest safety for both food workers and diners. For food workers laid off due to the pandemic, we will encourage programs that connect workers with businesses that are currently hiring. We will also expand access to training programs and education necessary for career advancement.

How would you fortify and expand community-driven efforts towards an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system?

New York City is a complex, ever-changing ecosystem that requires local and dynamic approaches to equity. To help people navigate this ecosystem, my administration will help to create and maintain a public, timely dataset of all food pantries, soup kitchens, and emergency food resources. We will also open bilateral, regular channels of communication with community members, particularly those in immigrant and other vulnerable communities. We need to encourage an accurate and up-to-date flow of information in an understandable format, which includes translation of educational materials and notices into the appropriate languages.

The City must also develop guidelines for equitable meal distribution. Recent studies have conducted geospatial analyses of the City’s food resources, and this data is crucial for identifying areas in need. New York Health + Hospitals and other organizations in close contact with vulnerable communities members should regularly screen for food insecurity. My administration will streamline the process of applying for safety net programs so that people can be rapidly connected with needed resources.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

A Belvita breakfast biscuit and some green tea.

One word you would use to describe the food system?

Vital.