Attachment B - 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan Community Collaborators.pdf
Extracted text (via pymupdf)
21663 characters
The following thirty-one (31) organizations support and have committed to participating in the implementation of the 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan (some organizations provided an individual letter of support that is attached): • Activate Food Arizona • Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired • Arizona Food Bank Network • Arizona State University Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems • Dr. Chris Wharton (as an individual) • Community Exchange Table • Creighton Community Foundation • Diana Gregory Outreach Services • Diemer Dream Crops Farm • Emerald Roots Farm Collective • Food Skills Collaborative • Garden Hoes Local Farm Goods • HonorHealth Desert Mission • Lending Hands Outreach • LISC Phoenix • Local First Arizona • Machokoto Family Farms • Orchard Community Learning Center • Phoenix Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission • Pinnacle Prevention • Shamba AZ • Silverlining Homestead • Spaces of Opportunity • SRP • St. Mary's Food Bank • Sun Produce Cooperative • TigerMountain Foundation • Tonatierra • University of Arizona Center for Urban Smart Agriculture • University of Arizona Maricopa County Cooperative Extension • Valley of the Sun YMCA COMMUNITY COLLABORATORS AND SUPPORTERS ATTACHMENT B City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs 200 W. Washington St. Floor 14 Phoenix, AZ 85003 May 18, 2026 Subject: 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan Congratulations to the Office of Environmental Programs. The City of Phoenix 2030 Food Action Plan is comprehensive and recognizes that building a resilient food system requires the effort of all actors within our local food system. The plan’s goal of healthy, affordable, culturally relevant food for all can only be achieved through collaboration. The goals and actions outlined within the community-focused plan are ambitious, necessary, and require every one of us to successfully implement. The numerous health, economic, and social benefits that can be realized through this plan will aid in the transformation of the system that recognizes food is a human right. Thank you to the City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs for preparing this plan and for intentionally including organizations already working to improve our food system by reducing food insecurity and hunger, providing education, supporting farmers and food businesses, and investing in food system resilience. We are committed to being a partner in this 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan, and we look forward to helping create a local food system that works for everyone. Sincerely, Kathleen Merrigan, PhD. Executive Director Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems May 15, 2026 To: Phoenix City Council From: Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission (EQSC) Subject: Recommendation for the 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan Executive Summary The Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission (EQSC) has reviewed the City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs (OEP)’s 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan, which will define the next phase of the City’s food systems work. Following our deliberations, the Commission supports and formally recommends that the City Council approve the 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan. Recognition of Community Engagement and Extensive Planning Effort The Commission thanks the City for the opportunity to review the draft 2030 Food Action Plan. We appreciate the significant time, effort, and care that went into developing this plan. It is clear that extensive outreach and engagement were conducted, and that input from residents, community-based organizations, agricultural producers, advocates, business owners, and stakeholders across the food system helped shape a thoughtful and comprehensive vision. We applaud the City for incorporating the guiding values of “equity and justice, health and joy, community connection and sharing abundance, partnership and collective actions, and sustainability and resilience” into the 2030 Food Action Plan. We also commend the City for the strong track record demonstrated in the previous plan, where “establishing community partnerships and maintaining a clear, actionable framework contributed to 90% of the 2025 Food Action Plan actions being completed or in progress.” This success underscores the value of collaboration and clear implementation strategies, and provides a strong foundation for the 2030 plan. The plan outlines a comprehensive set of strategies to strengthen Phoenix’s food system, including expanding equitable food access, supporting local agriculture and food businesses, promoting nutrition education and community health, reducing food waste, and advancing sustainability. It also emphasizes improving policy and planning, fostering community connections, developing the food workforce, and building resilience to disruptions. Advancing these efforts will require sustained coordination across departments, strong partnerships with regional and community stakeholders, and continued engagement with residents to ensure the food system reflects and serves the needs of all communities. This work is especially important in the current context of the numerous challenges facing our agricultural producers and local and national food systems. Communities are navigating rising food costs, Arizona producers are contending with extreme heat and drought conditions, and there are widening inequities in access to healthy nutritious, locally-grown food. At the same time, there are growing concerns about the loss of federal funding and support for small and beginning farmers, reductions in SNAP and other nutrition assistance programs that help prevent and mitigate food insecurity, and the rapid loss of farmland throughout Maricopa County. These trends underscore the urgency of advancing a resilient, local food system that can better withstand economic and environmental pressures through thoughtful and robust planning efforts like this. Alignment with Climate and Sustainability Goals We appreciate that the plan was developed in coordination with the City’s Climate Action and Energy Access planning efforts. This alignment is important, as the City of Phoenix’s 2021 Climate Action Plan establishes a clear goal to create and maintain a healthy, sustainable, equitable, and thriving local food system with healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food for all residents. The 2030 Food Action Plan plays a critical role in advancing this long-term vision, and continued coordination across these efforts —as well as with the forthcoming update to the Climate Action Plan—will be essential to achieving shared climate resilience, sustainability, and equity outcomes. Recommendation for Phased Implementation and Prioritization We appreciate that the plan includes defined timelines for short-, medium-, and long-term actions, as well as detailed implementation guidance in Appendix A, including estimated funding levels, resource needs, and initial steps for each action.This level of detail provides a strong foundation for moving the plan forward. However, given the breadth of strategies and number of associated metrics, it remains unclear how the City will prioritize funding and implementation across these efforts. We recommend further clarifying how priority actions will be selected, particularly in the context of limited resources and competing demands. Establishing clear criteria—such as potential impact, cost-effectiveness, readiness, and alignment with equity and climate goals—would help guide decision-making. We also support the proposed strategy to develop mechanisms to monitor and report on progress, including a publicly available food systems dashboard that tracks implementation actions and outcomes. Pairing this transparency tool with clear prioritization and funding strategies will help ensure accountability and enable the City and community to track meaningful progress over time. Leveraging Community Partnerships for Impact In order to accomplish the goals of the plan, a coordinated, community-wide effort will be essential. Phoenix is fortunate to have a strong network of community-based organizations, nonprofits, food banks, urban farms, and advocacy groups already working to address food access, nutrition, sustainability, and to grow the food economy--thank you to the City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs for intentionally including these organizations already working to improve our food system in the scope of the plan. The City has and should continue to identify where existing efforts align with plan goals and consider how partnerships can be leveraged to achieve outcomes more efficiently. In some cases, collaborating with and investing in established community partners may be more effective than duplicating programs or building new systems from scratch. Need for Adequate Funding and City Council Support Importantly, successful implementation of this plan will require sustained and adequate funding. We encourage the City Council to support this effort by aligning budget priorities with the plan’s goals and ensuring that sufficient resources are dedicated to its implementation. Without the necessary financial commitment, it will be difficult to achieve the meaningful, long-term outcomes envisioned in the plan. Conclusion Overall, we commend the City of Phoenix for its leadership and commitment to addressing food system challenges in a comprehensive, ambitious, and forward-looking way. Thank you to the City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs for preparing this plan and for its continued leadership in advancing a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient food system. We appreciate the opportunity to provide input and look forward to supporting the implementation of the 2030 Food Action Plan. Respectfully submitted, The City of Phoenix Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission Kelly Barr, Chair Ginger Torres, Vice Chair Penny Allee Taylor, Commissioner Sotiria Anagnostou, Commissioner Darren Chapman, Commissioner Eric Gorsegner, Commissioner Kevin Groman, Commissioner Kathy Knoop, Commissioner Caroline Lobo, Commissioner Andrea Odegard-Begay, Commissioner Sarah Porter, Commissioner Bill Sandweg, Commissioner Amy Scoville-Weaver , Commissioner Colin Tetreault, Commissioner May 15, 2026 Letter of Support for the City of Phoenix 2030 Food Action Plan Dear Mayor Gallego and Members of the Phoenix City Council, Local First Arizona enthusiastically supports the City of Phoenix 2030 Food Action Plan and its vision for an equitable, sustainable and thriving local food system. As a nonprofit organization dedicated to inclusive community and economic development across Arizona, with expertise supporting farmers, food businesses, and improving community food access, we recognize the critical importance of coordinated local action to address food insecurity, environmental sustainability, public health, and economic opportunity in our food system. The collaborative approach and ambitious goals of the 2030 Food Action Plan show important leadership at a time when our statewide food systems are facing increasing challenges related to rapid loss of small farms and agricultural land, rising food costs, increasing environmental threats, and diminishing access to healthy local foods. In 2025, Local First Arizona facilitated a series of workshops to engage Phoenix businesses to provide input for development of this plan. We are encouraged that the goals, strategic priorities and actions outlined in this plan reflect input from the community and we believe that these initiatives will catalyze critical health, economic, and social benefits for our city. We congratulate the City for successful implementation of 90% of actions outlined in the 2025 Food Action Plan and are proud to have contributed to helping the City meet those goals through successful execution of programs like Feed Phoenix, a major COVID-era meal distribution initiative that partnered with local farms, restaurants, and caterers to provide meals to residents facing food insecurity. Current Collaboration We greatly value our ongoing collaboration with the City of Phoenix on food systems and community resilience initiatives. We are currently working with the City’s Housing Department to develop a community kitchen, food entrepreneur incubation program, and teaching gardens at the Thash Mahd Impact Hub in the Edison Eastlake Choice Neighborhoods community. We are also working with the Office of Environmental Programs to support Project REDUCE, a program aimed at helping restaurants reduce food loss and waste. Through our shared efforts to support local food initiatives, we have seen firsthand the City’s commitment to inclusive engagement and long-term impact, reinforcing our confidence in the success and importance of the 2030 Food Action Plan. Opportunities for Collaboration Local First Arizona has worked in partnership with the City of Phoenix to build a more vibrant, locally driven city for over 20 years. We operate a wide range of community-based programs in the City of Phoenix focused on food access, entrepreneurship, and sustainability. Local First food programs are designed to support food entrepreneurs while ensuring that families have access to nutritious, practical options. Through connecting business development, food rescue, education, and community kitchens, Local First is building a food system that fuels opportunity and wellbeing. Areas where we see alignment between Local First Arizona initiatives and strategic priorities identified in the 2030 Food Access Plan include: ● Strengthening local and regional food economies through Community Kitchens. We operate 4 Community Kitchens, including kitchens in Maryvale and Eastlake in Phoenix, which offer commercial kitchen spaces to help small food entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses. Our Community Kitchens offer affordable, licensed commercial facilities for food entrepreneurs enrolled in our Community Kitchen Incubator Program who are looking to grow their businesses. The program provides affordable rental rates that are ~60% below market rate, allowing for easier entry to the local food economy. Our community kitchens are also the hub of our 6-week Good Food Boot Camp that covers food business skills like purchasing, financing, marketing, operation logistics and permitting. As part of our Community Kitchen Incubator Program, entrepreneurs commit to participating in our Local Buying Program by sourcing at least 25% of their ingredients, supplies, or operational expenses from local vendors, growers and distributors, creating a circular, community-driven marketplace. ● Supporting urban agriculture, local producers, and community garden initiatives. We support over 50 garden beds, offered to local residents in Phoenix and Mesa for growing and personal development, harvesting foods for onsite food pantries and helping children to experience urban agriculture. Our garden education center at the Heart and Soil Garden in Phoenix is a community anchor for agricultural education, entrepreneurship training and neighborhood empowerment. Our Ag Business Boot Camp, a hybrid, eight-week program for small to mid- sized farmers, educates participants on business fundamentals through an agricultural lens and helps them grow sustainable, scalable farm businesses. The garden provides space for training urban farmers with hands-on agriculture skills—including crop planning, soil health, composting, seasonal planting, and sustainable urban farming—while providing a site to grow as they secure their own land. In response to rapid farmland loss in Maricopa County, we are actively working to help producers identify and access urban land available to farm. ● Expanding knowledge and access to affordable, healthy, and culturally relevant foods. Since 2020, we’ve run bi-monthly choice food pantries at affordable housing developments in Mesa and Glendale, providing supplementary groceries to hundreds of families. With an aim to improve food literacy and nurture healthy food choices, our team provides healthful tips on how to prepare items (especially local produce & fruits or dry goods like beans and heirloom grains). We also offer adult, family and youth cooking and nutrition education classes to broaden palates, encourage healthier food choices, and improve confidence in the kitchen. ● Sustainability and reducing food waste. Across our Community Kitchens, we focus on reducing food waste and building circular food systems, redirecting surplus food to local gardens and farms. We partner with organizations like Recycled City and Waste Not to reduce food waste through food rescue, composting and diversion. Through our Green Business Boot Camp, we provide restaurants and food businesses information and assistance executing low waste practices, waste audits, and sustainable procurement. Our Green Loan Fund is a tool to help food businesses purchase equipment, like freezers and dehydrators, that can help restaurants do more with the ingredients they've purchased. ● Providing resources to the community. Our Devour-Good Food Directory is a comprehensive online directory and interactive map that connects residents with local farms, food businesses, kitchens, and community food resources across the state and includes many Phoenix-based listings. Recommendation to increase resiliency through desert adapted foods Phoenix has a unique opportunity to lead the world in building a more resilient and sustainable agricultural future in the desert. As Phoenix faces increasing heat, water scarcity, and rising operational costs for producers, long-term local food security will depend on agricultural practices that are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable in a desert climate. While the draft plan includes important references to supporting water conservation activities (Action 4.5) and promoting sustainable and innovative food production (Action 4.4), it could further acknowledge the role that crop selection can play in sustainability. Supporting low-water-use, desert-adapted, and drought-tolerant crops is an important component of a broader climate-resilient food strategy. The City has an opportunity to encourage adoption of crops adapted to the Sonoran Desert and expand access to heirloom, Indigenous, and culturally significant crops and traditional foods like agave, prickly pear, tepary beans, and mesquite. Potential strategies could include technical assistance and demonstration projects focused on desert-adapted foods, incentives for growers of desert adapted foods, partnerships with tribes, local nonprofits, universities, and farmers to expand knowledge-sharing, procurement incentives and market- development to help create demand for desert adapted foods. Local First Arizona is working to catalyze a shift toward sustainable practices and regenerative agriculture to build resilient food systems that thrive in our desert environment and we would be happy to work with the City on these initiatives. Conclusion The plan’s goal of healthy, affordable, culturally relevant food for all can only be achieved through collaboration. We thank the City for intentionally including organizations like ours that are working to improve our food system by reducing food insecurity and hunger, providing education, supporting farmers and food businesses, and investing in food system resilience. We are committed to being a partner in this 2030 Food Action Plan, and we look forward to continued collaboration to create a more resilient, healthy, and equitable food system. We commend the City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs for creating a meaningful, actionable, and ambitious plan and strongly support its approval. Sincerely, Kimber Lanning CEO and Founder TigerMountain Foundation | 3146 E Wier Avenue, Suite 31 | Phoenix, AZ 85040 www.TigerMountainFoundation.org AZ Qualified Tax Credit Charity # 20127 May 12, 2026 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan Partner Letter of Support TigerMountain Foundation supports the City of Phoenix 2030 Food Action Plan and recognizes that building a resilient food system requires the effort of all actors within our local food system. The plan’s goal of healthy, affordable, culturally relevant food for all can only be achieved through collaboration. The goals and actions outlined within the community- focused plan are ambitious, necessary, and require every one of us to successfully implement. The numerous health, economic, and social benefits that can be realized through this plan will aid in the transformation of the system that recognizes food is a human right. Thank you to the City of Phoenix Office of Environmental Programs for preparing this plan and for intentionally including organizations already working to improve our food system by reducing food insecurity and hunger, providing education, supporting farmers and food businesses, and investing in food system resilience. We are committed to being a partner in this 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan, and we look forward to helping create a local food system that works for everyone. Sincerely, Darren J. Chapman CEO - Founder - TigerMountain Foundation darren.chapman@TigerMountainFoundation.org Cell | (213) 300-8846