How It Began

The catalyst for this effort arose out of the Food Bank of North Alabama and the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network'scollaboration with Mayor Tommy Battle’s Green 13 Committee, which in 2010 published a sustainability report outlining a set of recommendations for the greening of Huntsville.

In the report’s section dedicated to food and agriculture, the first recommendation is for the City of Huntsville to collaborate to establish a regional food policy council focused on sustainable community food system planning and urban rural linkages.

A sustainable community food system is a collaborative network that integrates local food production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste management for the environmental, economic and social health of a region.