We’re BACK!
February 19, 2016 Michael R. DimockROC is gearing up again for another year of action after our late-fall-early-winter respite. AND we are in a significant transition related to both funding and our role as a supporter of the California Food Policy Council (CAFPC).
In order to operate with less restriction on our policy work, ROC must raise more funds from individuals and companies and depend much less on foundation grants. This effort will begin with a May 2016 crowd-funding campaign on the Barnraiser platform, founded to power “the food movement one project at a time.” Watch for our communications in the run up to the event and please plan to donate. We need the support of the people within the movement to continue the hard work of making our representatives listen by publishing the ROC-CAFPC annual report on state legislators’ response to the movement and by organizing statewide advocacy campaigns meant to direct our food and farm system toward health, justice and resilience.
This year ROC will focus on winning a state budget allocation to fund nutrition incentives via the California Nutrition Incentives Act (AB1321) we sponsored and passed last year with our champion in the Legislature, Assembly Member Phil Ting (San Francisco). We will also continue to help lead the fight to pass a statewide sugar sweetened beverage fee by creating the “Children and Family Health Promotion Fund.” If realized, this fund will provide up to $400 million per year to enhance community food projects that will make fresh, healthy food available to local communities most at risk from diet related disease. This would be an unprecedented funding source that will offer grants to community-based organizations that seek to transform our food system. It will usher in the long desired goal of creating more localized, sustainable and resilient food sources across the state.
We will also continue to support the campaigns led by CalCAN and our many other sustainable farming allies. They seek to increase the amount of AB 32 climate change adaptation and mitigation funds invested in sustainable farming systems and research, particularly those programs that help farmers and ranchers to build their soil to capture carbon, protect our water resources and agricultural lands.
Finally, we will continue to act as a strategic advisor to the CAFPC on policy and be the publisher of the annual legislative report mentioned above. And we are thrilled that the CAFPC is spreading its wings to handle its own planning, communications, meeting logistics and facilitation.
So please, help ROC to power the good food movement by giving now and when the campaign begins in May!
Image: Doris Meier
