San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Directive [PDF] this week at a City Slicker Farm in Oakland during the Direct Farm Marketing Summit organized by Roots of Change, making food system planning the unambiguous responsibility of city government. Under the directive, it is the official city policy to increase the amount of healthy and sustainable food available to San Francisco residents, charging mayoral agencies with specific steps to accomplish this goal. By using his executive powers, Newsom was able to move swiftly, though some agency initiatives will eventually require legislation enacted by the Board of Supervisors.

The Directive is ambitious in articulating a vision of a food system with nutritious food for all San Franciscans, shorter distances between consumers and producers, protections for worker health and welfare, reduced environmental impacts, and strengthened connections between urban and rural communities. Such progressive goals are nothing new for San Francisco. A number of existing plans, resolutions, ordinances and executive directives address elements of sustainability within the food system. San Francisco’s 1997 sustainability plan, which was adopted as a non-binding city policy, has a chapter on food. Resolutions adopted in 2005 commit city agencies to maximize their purchases of fair trade and organic food. A 2006 “shape up at work” directive requires agencies to support a healthier living and eating environment in the workplace. Ordinances requiring farmers markets to take EBT cards, banning agencies from buying bottled water, and resolutions supporting cage-free chickens and opposing foie gras have been passed in recent years.

But several things distinguish the new Directive from these previous efforts. First, it is notably comprehensive in scope, recognizing the need “to consider the food production, distribution, consumption and recycling system holistically.” The principles outlined in the Directive include: allocating city funds to ensure that hunger is eliminated; planning neighborhoods to ensure healthy food options; spending municipal food dollars on regionally produced and sustainable food; encouraging food production on City owned land; promoting local food businesses; supporting policies to conserve peri-urban prime farmland; helping to market regionally grown food in San Francisco; recycling all organic residuals and eliminating chemical use in municipal agriculture and landscaping; educating residents about healthy food and sustainable food systems; and advocating for consistent state and federal policies.

Second, it was developed with the involvement of a broad range of municipal officials, advocates, and business representatives, and empowers these stakeholders to monitor and advance the Directive’s initiatives through a new Food Policy Council that will meet bi-monthly. The Council is explicitly charged with reviewing the City Code, General Plan, and other policies to identify amendments that can achieve the goals of food system sustainability.

Third, and perhaps most significantly, the Directive contains a series of sixteen mandatory actions that various agencies must take, within relatively short order, to plan and implement its goals. The specificity of these requirements separates this effort from other municipal resolutions, non-binding plans and charters, and other mainly hortatory exercises. Among these various mandates, several stand out as particularly significant: