PlumpJackin': Local Food Policy Under Development

The hangover from last weekend's Slow Food Nation has barely subsided, but already Mayor Gavin Newsom is proving himself to be serious about extending the whole movement beyond Labor Day, for better or worse. His latest proposal involves an official food policy that would make locally-sourced food a priority in the public arena:

The mayor is expected to release San Francisco's first food policy in the next several months, and one of the cornerstones will be decreased reliance on imported food. The policy will also encourage urban gardens and call for planting fruit-bearing trees and plants in street medians and abandoned lots. How much the city will be able to accomplish will depend largely on cost.

Well, at least we know one topic of conversation between Gavin and Alice last weekend, and even though the Civic Center's showpiece garden will say goodbye in November, they've got a whole host of replacements coming to a piece of city land near you.

San Francisco's urban gardens are another area with potential to yield plenty of fruits and vegetables, but they are logistically complex. Already, residents complain about fruit trees planted on public lands that spill rotten produce on streets and sidewalks.

The Public Works Department has created several successful community gardens that are tended by residents, a spokeswoman said. How far that program can be stretched remains to be seen. Next year, the city will open 15 offshoots of the Victory Garden in front of City Hall.

It sounds like a nice plan and all (we'll have both the healthiest schoolchildren and homelesses in the country), but what we'd really like to see are those high-rise farms of the future.
· S.F. developing policy on use of local food [Chron]