Monitoring resilient food systems in the USA

Key points

• Regional food policies have been adopted at the county level in the states of California and Texas
• Food system dashboards collate data to monitor progress against food system indicators identified in the regional food policies
• The dashboards include information about the data source, scale and date of data collection
• The dashboards provide a place for collective monitoring and evaluating progress among partners

San Diego, California

In the US state of California, the San Diego County Food Vision 2030 was released in 2021 to guide collective action toward a healthy, sustainable, and just food system over the next ten years [1]. It was developed by the San Diego Food System Alliance, established in 2011, in collaboration with communities, producers, food and farm workers and the San Diego County Board.

There are three interlinked food system goals of cultivating justice, fighting climate change, and building resilience, and ten objectives to transform the food system, including:

• Preserve agricultural land and soils, and commit to long term food production
• Scale up food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling initiatives
• Increase Black, Indigenous, and People of Color leadership across the food system
• Plan for a resilient food system

A dashboard for each objective presents data to monitor and evaluate progress over the ten year plan [2]. Indicators in the dashboards provide a snapshot of the current state of the food system. For example, indicators under the ‘food waste prevention’ objective focus on monitoring waste sent to landfill and organics recycling, and indicators under the ‘resilient food system’ objective focus on food security and climate risks.

Austin, Texas

In the US state of Texas, the Austin/Travis County Food Plan was released in 2024 [3]. The Plan has seven objectives for a just, accessible, and culturally diverse food system, including:

• Invest in an equitable local food economy and workforce, including strengthening local food production, agriculture, processing and distribution, and food recovery
• Strengthen food supply chains to support community health and nutrition and the well-being of workers, the environment, and animal welfare
• Build collective community power and coordination to strengthen the local food justice movement towards the fundamental human right to food

The Food Plan objectives are aligned with nine goals, and each has a series of related food system data and indicators collated within the Central Texas Food System Data Dashboard [4]. For example, indicators related to direct to consumer sales and prevalence of farmers markets are listed to measure progress of the goal ‘more resilient and sustainable local supply chains’.