Hungry for Change
Paula Daniels is a woman of many talents – lawyer, confidante, policy expert, entrepreneur, athlete. And she knows her food.
After decades as a successful private sector attorney, she transitioned to a full- time role in the public and social sectors. In 2015, she founded the Center for Good Food Purchasing, a social enterprise non-profit established as a national spin-off from the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, which Daniels created in 2011.
She’s also held a number of powerful appointed posts, including stints at the California Water Commission, the California Coastal Commission, the L.A. Public Works Commission and as Mayor Villaraigosa’s senior policy advisor on food. When she’s not teaching classes at UCLA’s School of Law, you can find her in the ocean, working on her paddle canoeing. As a Native Hawaiian, her heritage infuses all her work to return us to a more integrated, sustainable food system.
More recently, Daniels has rolled up her sleeves to contribute to the work of the Los Angeles County Food Equity Roundtable, a private-public partnership formed to tackle rising food insecurity rates in the region.
In this wide-ranging interview, she shares her take on why L.A. can lead the way on true food reform.
What are some of the biggest challenges of working to better feed marginalized communities in greater L.A.?
For many vulnerable communities, when it comes to food access – particularly nutritious food access, the deck seems stacked against them. There are geographic challenges, most notably neighborhoods where fresh, healthy options aren’t available. There are more grocery stores in higher income neighborhoods. We also know that lack of grocery access is correlated with race. This lack of food availability doesn’t happen by accident. In L.A. alone, predominately white residential areas have 3.2 times as many supermarkets as predominantly black communities, and 1.7 as many stores as predominantly Latinx communities.
There is a long history to how we got here, so to keep it simple, we have to acknowledge that for many L.A. residents, buying food itself is a difficult endeavor. It is a complex calculation of resources: time to travel to get food, funds to travel, then the resources and time to prepare food. It creates a complex problem of food insecurity, or the lack of access to food in general, compounded with nutrition insecurity, otherwise described as a lack of access to nutritious food.
On top of geographic barriers, we live in a city with a high cost of living. The living wage for a family of four in L.A. is $30.15 an hour. With the minimum wage at $15.50, that is a lot of room to make up. This means people are either doing what they can with less, and likely working more hours to make up the difference.
The challenge is to not only solve immediate problems, such as hunger, but to move towards a reality in Los Angeles where both accessing and affording food is easier in the long term. That takes both investment and creativity in solutions that meet L.A. communities where they are at and invest in a food system that really works for them.
And what are some of the greatest opportunities? What are our strengths?
L.A. has a lot going for it as far as opportunities, as we are in state with a robust agricultural economy. In 2022, over a third of the US’s vegetables and nearly ¾ of the country’s fruits and nuts were grown in CA. We have a practically year-round growing season. So, the supply in many ways is there. It’s really about using resources to build a food system that better supports food access.
Equally important, L.A. has a network of grassroots and institutional advocates, including the L.A. Food Policy Council. During the height of Covid-19, we saw a flurry of cross-sector collaboration from community-based advocates that really lends itself to tackling food insecurity but also those systemic issues such as having quality jobs paying a living wage. Some examples I was inspired by included Commonwealth Kitchen in Boston, a community of food business entrepreneurs. They launched CommonTable in May 2020 in response to growing food insecurity. Since launching they have distributed nearly 100,000 meals and spent over $558,000 in their local economy, because they were sourcing from local farmers. It’s a win-win approach toward bending the linear, extractive model of food production, into a more holistic system. By contrast, during our COVID experience, we saw untold thousands of pounds of produce being wasted, because we didn’t have the right supply chain relationships set up as they did in this Boston example.
In cities like Washington D.C., Austin, and Denver we saw local governments able to assemble efficient, well-coordinated emergency response because they had these cross-sector relationships with businesses, community-based orgs, and local policy makers. I think right now, we need to be looking at these examples, and come to the realization that this type of collaboration and investment shouldn’t stop. We got a glimpse during COVID of private and public investments in food distribution, farmer and grower support, coordinating across the food supply chain, boosts to food budgets with programs like Pandemic EBT, and institutions being supported in offering things like Universal School Meals. Why stop here? We have an opportunity to look at long-standing problems, like food access, but also new challenges – such as the impacts of climate change – and start building toward a 21st Century model. Right now!
The most pressing opportunity is that due to federal and state investments, such as the Local Food Procurement Act, our country has begun investing in both hard infrastructure (kitchens, trucks, land access) and equally important is soft infrastructure (staffing, new jobs such as value chain coordinators). The real opportunity is to keep the momentum while we have such a strong foundation and active examples across the country to learn from.
When the average person thinks about climate change, they tend to think about airplanes and cars and coal factories and what not, rather than the food on their plate. Tell us more about the nexus between smarter food policy and fighting climate change.
Agriculture is responsible for about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, and of that amount, over half is from industrialized production of cattle for beef consumption and dairy products. Moving at scale toward a more plant-based diet, and toward more regeneratively produced meat, chicken and fish, will make a big difference on our climate impacts.
And also, smarter food policy has the potential to not only lower those emissions to meet climate goals, but to also offer win-wins for communities struggling with food access and food-related health disparities.
For example, policies that increase the market potential of those producers that emphasize regenerative farming practices can increase biodiversity and improve soil health while also increasing production of nutritious foods such as legumes and oats. Policies that reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers lower the amounts of nitrous oxide being released into the atmosphere, while also addressing farmworker public health and safety. For L.A., smart food policy could look like considering how we use public lands and park spaces to mitigate heat consequences and supply chain resilience, and offer more land to urban farmers. It could be supporting L.A. schools in aligning their school lunch with climate friendly food purchasing. It could be supporting food hubs in connecting to city contracts, both in technical assistance and financial support, so that farmers and producers using climate-friendly growing practices are able to sustain and grow their businesses.
When the goal is just getting food on the table for those most in need, is climate really the most important thing? How can we reconcile those two goals – feeding more people and reducing our carbon footprint? Can it be done?
We have to acknowledge that food access vs. climate resiliency is a false choice. Right now 30%-40% of our food supply goes to waste, so it really isn’t an issue of not producing enough. It’s a supply chain issue that really lends itself to creative problem solving that can align with climate goals. Also, we know that the same individuals and families that struggle with food insecurity will face some of the harshest impacts from climate change. So it really is our government’s responsibility to start weaving environmental sustainability and resilience into the solutions.
However, the cost burden doesn’t need to fall on individuals and families. Local governments investing in more climate conscious food purchasing allows for farmers and producers to receive larger, secure contracts. It also can offer financial benefits for institutions themselves and communities as a whole. For instance, in a pilot with the Veterans Health Administration, plant-based proteins were increased on their menus. They saw costs go down by 8% for plant-based proteins vs. a meat alternative. Also, public institutions can act as anchors in the greater system. So, long term public investment in more climate conscious food solutions can build up public infrastructure such as packing facilities, transportation routes, kitchen infrastructure, and skilled labor that lends itself to bringing the cost of environmentally friendly foods down for individuals while supporting fair wages.
Food, as you know, is big business – controlled by corporate interests. How do investors on Wall Street play a role in rising food insecurity rates?
What I immediately think of is corporate consolidation in our food system. I think about the example of the egg shortage earlier this year. Eggs, a generally affordable protein source, spiked because of a bird flu epidemic. Yes, some of that is just bad luck. However, some of it is what happens when big business runs crowded egg operations and there is consolidation in egg production so less distributed operators. It is a less resilient supply system because of the consolidation, because there aren’t opportunities for independent operators who may be less affected by things like disease, drought, etc.
We see this with meat too. Earlier this year, we saw commodity prices drop but those prices weren’t reflected at the grocery store. As companies consolidate, they have less incentive to keep prices low -- because they don’t have much competition. They also have less incentive to not violate labor laws (see Tyson) because they have such a grip on the market.
So again, investing in a more decentralized, well meshed network of smaller and mid-scale local producers can address those kinds of issues.
What is your vision for a more decentralized, values-driven approach to how government devises and implements food policy? Is it realistic to think we can build a better mousetrap, as it were?
Government run institutions - think school districts, hospitals, universities, and jails can help anchor values-based purchasing through longer term, supported contracts for values-aligned food. Governments have an opportunity to support this through policy by creating goal posts that are celebrated, offering incentives for environmental purchasing – and better yet, go beyond local as the only factor, and making sure institutional buyers and supported in their efforts to procure values-aligned options. This can be trainings and supports, looking at guidance for procurement at city, county, and state offices, and connecting institutional buyers with growers and producers ready to scale.
If we think about the breadth and depth of values-based purchasing, and what that looks like when scaled, it hits on so many key issues that governments are grappling with. It is an investment in climate resiliency. If done right, it means investments in local, well-paying jobs and regional economic development. It should move high quality food into communities that have struggled with nutritious food access. I think when we think about this not just as an investment in food but a multifaceted strategy for governments to take on, for leaders to make good on multiple promises, it’s really a no-brainer.
Tell us more about your concept of using public dollars for public good. How can that principle be applied to reducing food insecurity?
If cities as centers of regional food change were to coordinate their public food procurement contracts with value-based goals, the combined purchasing power could be the basis for a more equitable, community centered mid-scale food supply chain, operating alongside the more globalized supply chain in the way renewable energy operates alongside the prevailing energy fuel system.
Along with values-aligned food purchasing increasing access to high-quality food in the broader community through strengthened supply chains, it is also important to consider that food insecure individuals' interface with institutions frequently. Increasing food availability of say seafood, which is more environmentally friendly or legumes, supports health. We’ll hopefully see health and wellness improvements that save food insecure individuals money on things like medical bills.
Also, going back to what was mentioned about good jobs. Stay tuned: we have just completed a study looking at the potential for an increase in good quality jobs in a more localized food system. The numbers are impressive.
U.S. consumers spend an estimated $1 trillion a year on food, which is nearly 10 percent of the gross domestic product[1]. Upwards of 20 million people are employed in the food industry, inclusive of production, distribution, processing, retail service and waste management[2]. Nationally, the single largest percentage of manufacturing jobs has been in the food sector[3]. And, for every four workers employed directly by the food system, another job is created indirectly due to economic activity of food system industries.[4] In other words, it is a powerful economic engine.
It shows that public dollars for public good, when implemented can also mean good paying, high quality jobs in a community. Hopefully, this type of investment actually lowers the number of individuals struggling with food insecurity in the long run. It’s really about getting to the root causes as much as possible.