(11:30 a.m. Time Certain) Annual Update - Food Policy Advisory Board - No Funding Required
What the county recorded
Staff recommendation
Presentation Only
No disposition in the minutes
The approved minutes do not say what became of this item. That is a gap in the record, not a decision. It is the normal state for 24% of items. Most of those are regular business and board reports that the minutes do not dispose of in writing. This archive never infers an outcome from the fact that someone called a vote.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 6, 2022
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 6, 2022
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
This case, across meetings
PDD-23-0036 in full →PDD-23-0036 was taken up 2 times between Oct 25, 2022 and Dec 6, 2022 — this is appearance 2.
- Oct 25, 2022BoardR78▶No disposition in the minutes
- Dec 6, 2022BoardR95▶No disposition in the minutesthis item
No appearance of this case has a final disposition in the minutes. It was continued, or the minutes do not dispose of it in writing — which is true for 24% of items.
What was said
Machine transcription of 14m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 33% of 48 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
policy adjourned. That would be ninety-five, that was your eleven thirty time certain.
All right, so we're gonna do uh R ninety-five food policy advisory board.
Mm-hmm. Making sure you can get out of here.
We're ready. Otherwise we'd pick the next check we got coming.
We don't have a check for you, but it's us.
Good morning commissioners. I am Sunid. Everyone, actually. Good morning, everyone. I am Sunid Simon, a planner two here at the county. Mr. Del Deshaunt. And
I'm Del Deshaunt, the Chair of the Committee.
We'll be talking about the Food Policy Advisory Council and the work that we've been doing within the last year since we last reported.
Great, thank you. Uh thank you, Sunid. And I just want to note that whatever we've accomplished, the achievements that we've had, are largely the result of Sunid's great work. So we're very appreciative of her and her leadership and her caring. As you can see up on the screen and in the literature that you have, uh the purpose of the Pasco County Food Policy Council is articulated there. The Uh Council was established in two thousand fifteen. Which makes us one of the oldest uh food
policy councils in the state. And when we were originally established, we were only the second one that was established in the entire state. So that's a point of pride for this county that I really want to encourage the county commissioners to take ownership of. This is your baby. We're doing it in the connection with your leadership and your caring. If you look at the screen you'll see a number of words up there, maybe you get a chance to read them, but I do want to call attention to three terms that are relevant to what we're going to say today. One of which is the word resilient. It says supporting
an equitable, uh, resilient local food system in the county. We are very interested in developing resiliency within the county, which as of right now, with all due respect, we don't have. We also are working to cultivate a local food system, which again With all due respect, is something that we don't have. The vast majority of the food that cons is consumed in Pasco County is imported. It's imported from other parts of the country, it's imported from other parts of the state. and imported from overseas.
So to the degree that we can localize the system, we're all better off and we're stronger for it. And then finally, the last line, the very last line on this purpose sheet, you'll see is produced in the county. To the degree that we can begin to produce more of the food that we consume here in the county, the better off we are. I'm going to turn it back to Sunid now.
And the way we do this is we do this through connecting our different organizations and groups that are here in our county. We do connect the economic development, our food security efforts, we do the preservation, as well as enhancements of our agricultural and environmental concerns. We work on supporting other groups and groups that are here in the county that are doing the work that they're doing for us every day and find ways that we can bring that back here when we look at policies and we look at different issues. And we review legislation, different legislation
that comes in from the state, on the federal level, as well as on a local level, the regulations that we hear on the local level. And then we'll talk about the last two.
Very good. Thank you, Sunid. Yes, the last two items I are quite quite critical to the work of the Council and to the work of any food policy council. We are a recommending body. Obviously, we have no power, no authority on our own. We're only as good as the County Commission is in accepting the proposals that we bring forward. And as many of you know, we have brought forward proposals in the past. I want to focus on one of importance, which we're going to talk about maybe just a little bit later. Uh and that is the recommendation that we made to
the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council regarding the resiliency plan. You will note that in the resiliency plan of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is item number eight. Item number eight deals specifically with the food system. Were it not for The Pasco County Food Policy Council, item eight would not even have been in the resiliency plan. We made a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners they go to Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and include item number eight. which they did
together with the support of the city of Newport Ritchie which also backed up the county in that recommendation. So item number eight, when you see it, I think Sunid will show a slide on, you might even have a copy of it. Uh that was largely the result. That was largely the result of the work of this uh uh of the uh of the food policy council. With the support of the Board of County Commissioners, I really want to stress that. Without your support, it would not have moved forward. Once that got into the considerations of the Regional Planning Council Our uh
Food Policy Council was invited to include further items to include in item number eight to strengthen the local food system. So that recommendation was powerful and important and again a point of pride for this county coming out of the Pasco County Food Policy Council. That item that activity ties in directly with the idea of informing, educating and communicating, and that's what we're doing here today. And that's what we're ready to do anytime, anywhere, with any group that wants us to come to speak to them.
Saneed?
And we can't do our work, our fabulous work, I'd say, without our fellows group of folks and members. Um we have members that come from different backgrounds, like Dell, Academia, um, our farmers markets, we have our health department that's involved, we have our IPOS group, we have our grocers and other distributors, and I won't go through the whole list, but we have amazing members that have been doing this work and they come each quarter in order to do this work. Which has led to some of our accomplishments in the past that Sidel has uh hinted towards.
And and some of our accomplishments includes being the first one in Florida to have the urban agricultural ordinance that you guys helped pass. That was amazing work that we telled pass. As well as our food systems assessment that we're able to understand on a local level where are we when we're coming to Talking about how are we generating and what are we taking in for our family and security of food. And that was really seen to be very important during the pandemic as we were trying to figure out how do we make sure people receive
what they need in order to continue on through that pandemic that we had.
And all of this is being done, of course, with, I believe, a budget of how much? Zero. So this is really a volunteer organization, volunteer body, which I'll just note would benefit from a little bit of county support in terms of funding to push forward with some of these powerful initiatives, which only makes the county look brighter, more powerful, and more brilliant to folks that may want to move here, as well as to the residents. Who are already here. We have up there, the last item on there was the regional resiliency plan. I've talked about that a little bit further.
I don't want to go into any more detail on it. You have the uh information on item number eight up there, Sunita. I don't know if it's still up there for the folks that are watching. Uh goal number eight in the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council resiliency plan again is largely the result. Of the work of your Pasco County Food Policy Council and your support. So thank you for that. And again, to put a point on it again, what we're stressing through item number eight in the resiliency plan, as well as our overall work, is the localization
of the food system and the reduction of imported foods coming into Pasco County. To the degree that we can be successful at that, we will make a real difference in the Pasco County food. uh food system.
Some of the past activities that we've done in that past year was reprioritizing our goals because we were looking at what has p how has pandemic changed things and Reprioritizing our goals, especially because our pandemic had changed pretty much how we were approaching things. It helped us look at new ways, new ways and new issues that were happening within our county in order to and also seeing the gaps of what we had as existing and where we needed to get to. We also have been participating with the comprehensive plan
update as well as other review updates that were other plan updates that we have here. In the county. I'm not gonna talk about everything, but I'll also talk about a great partnership that we started off with USF's urban food sovereignty group, which has been really important to us because we play this pivotal role for Pasco. Other groups have different groups coming from other places, but Pasco is our F PAC board that's being able to speak for PASCO in order to talk about the food system. And lastly, I'll talk about our continual partnership. participation with different community groups.
And like I said, that's what makes us strong. These partnerships make us strong. And that's been really good when we've been talking about just our we have a network that we work with, with Tampa Bay Network. Of to um to defeat the Hungary, as well as what we just talked about with goal eight was Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, Management Planning Committee.
Good, thank you, Sunid. Uh and uh thank you all for your time. To conclude our presentation, I do want to note under the current initiatives, items that may be coming to the Board of County Commissioners review and reflection. One is the work and the recommendations that we'll make on the landscape ordinance. Also the proposal that is on there, which is the fruit tree list, which is the inclusion of fruit trees in the list of food. of trees that can be planted with new developments or as replacement trees for ones that are removed. That
would make a big difference in terms of localizing the food system. For the most part, we encourage folks to plant non-fruit bearing trees, ornamentals, many exotics, folks uh trees from other areas. If we planted fruit trees, that would also be a ready source of food. But that's just one item where the County Commission could be of help to what we're doing. To the degree that you uh find it possible, we appreciate whatever support that you can share, both rhetorical support, which we always have, and we're thankful for that, but also financial support if that's possible.
Again, to conclude, what we're stressing is the localization of the food system and the reduction of the importation of food from other areas for our food system. Thank you very much and thank you for your support. All right, thank you. Commissioner Starkey.
And I kinda c caused this to get started how long ago?
We we were started in 2015.
I'm so proud of all the work that you're doing. And um you know we have uh a really good partner in the Ag Commissioner. So we gotta make sure he knows what we're doing and how we're leading leading the way on this. And um Uh again uh an um One of the things I you and I have talked about Dell is developing agri tourism. I know when I go visit my family that's uh stationed in uh Fairchild Air Force
Base in Washington every time we go. We go on the agri tourism Uh we get there's a brochure and we go visit the farms and we go pick apples and cherries and peaches and we do it every single time. So uh I think agritourism has a a place in our county and I wanna um continue to to support that.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought it forward from twenty fifteen and the great work you're doing with it. Uh Colleen Weaver, my assistant. She was at the presentation that you guys had done in Regional Planning Council. You did a very good job there. Thank you. Uh the speakers I think that came right after you had a really a couple of really good ideas that I think we have land that we can use on a couple of FGA properties that could work uh was starting that conversation. So uh I'll share it with the rest of the board as well. Um and then if you would get with Commissioner uh uh I mean uh Colleen my assistant and
she can kind of she'll get you in the loop to that when we have a meeting up and you can bring everybody to the table and have a good dialogue about it.
Commissioner Mariano uh one more thing and I I would love for you guys to compile a list of products that are made here. I can tell you um at Starkey Market we you know we try and carry the local stuff and I don't have the whole list in my mind right now but we do sell the Providence beef that is fantastic. It's local, it's grass fed. We carry um goodies. Key lime pie. No, not key lime. Blasphemy.
The uh frozen kumquat pie, the official pie of Pasco County, and their salad dressing, and and some other local products that are made made here. So we really want to um everyone to promote um to buy
Mm-hmm.
Okay. We're all for that. Uh Commissioner Mariano, I think we have that meeting set up too for the folks with the um I think it's a biodynamic project that they're working on. We're cool on that. And Commissioner Starkey, we're right on with you in terms of developing that local system. And to the degree that we can get some support and some help on that, I think we can really ramp that up because they're not only cottage industries that are here, but there's also still a viable agricultural sector in Pasco County. We are losing our agricultural lands, we
know that, but there still is a viable sector there and that can be ramped up if we get some support
We have some goat mar goat farms that are very that make a lot of products too.
And eggs. Eggs, milk, and plenty more. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
So we
thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. Should I do I should iron any three numbers here?
Yeah.
We are so behind, Dell, sorry.