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25 <br />direct services. The Upper Neuse River Basin Association - of which Orange County <br />and the Town of Hillsborough are members - is another example of jurisdictions <br />joining together to pursue a common policy interest, in that case to work <br />collaboratively to meet state - mandated water quality rules. <br />It's important to emphasize the policy aspect of a food council. What is "food <br />policy "? The definition offered by the Asheville- Buncombe Food Policy Council <br />provides a good working start: <br />Broadly defined, food policy is a set of collective decisions made by <br />governments at all levels, businesses, and organizations that affect how food <br />gets from the farm to your table. <br />A food policy can be as broad as a federal regulation on food labeling or as <br />local and specific as a zoning law that allows city dwellers to raise honeybees <br />... a vast food system generates many policies, and for the most part, the <br />average resident doesn't have much of a role in shaping them. <br />Food Policy Councils provide a pathway to address this lack of participation <br />by bringing together all stakeholders in a community food system and <br />organizing a voice to construct systems that reflect our shared values! <br />Food councils address the entire food cycle: from production and processing <br />through distribution, consumption, and waste recycling. They are concerned, for <br />example, with the real impacts of the "farm -to- table" movement; for as our own <br />Andrea Reusing recently noted, as this popular concept "has slipped further away <br />from the food movement and into the realms of foodie -ism and corporate marketing, it <br />is increasingly unhitched from the issues it is so often assumed to address." To wit, <br />Reusing's experience teaches her that "our food system is built on inequality and <br />requires it to function."' Attacking that inequity at every possible point along the <br />cycle is one of the primary missions of a food council. <br />Here are some examples of the work of food councils: <br />• Asheville - Buncombe Food Policy Council: Advocated for passage of a number <br />of policies, including allowing agriculture structures on residentially zoned <br />properties with no home structure; allowing farm stands in residentially <br />zoned areas; allowing livestock and fowl on urban lots with a permit; and <br />planting edible landscaping on city -owned property. <br />z Asheville- Buncombe Food Policy Council, http:/ /www.abfoodpolicy.org. <br />3 "Farm -to -table may feel virtuous, but it's food labor that's ripe for change." Interview, NPR. <br />https: / /www.npr.org/ sections /thesalt/ 2017 /07/30/539112692/a- chefs -plea <br />