East Point Agriculture Plan prioritizes access to healthy foods and urban farming - South Metro Neighbor

East Point’s first Agriculture Plan focuses on urban farming and prioritizing equitable access to healthy foods.

With a unanimous vote at their April 19 meeting, East Point City Council adopted a new City Agriculture Plan, the first of its kind in the Atlanta Region.

The initial draft of the plan — developed throughout 2020 by a steering committee comprised of East Point community leaders, local growers and city planners — was created in partnership with Atlanta nonprofit Food Well Alliance and the Atlanta Regional Commission. The steering committee worked with city council during the first part of 2021 to arrive at the version of the plan approved last week, and implementation is now underway.

“This plan is going to be a gamechanger for urban agriculture and building local food ecosystems across the nation,” Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham said. “With City Council’s vote, guidance from our partner organizations and key resources now in place, the East Point City Agriculture Plan is poised to set the standard on providing a framework for equitable access to healthy food in communities similar to East Point.”

The concept for the plan came out of a key learning from FWA’s 2017 Local Food Baseline Report — local community leaders and growers needed a way to bring their voices to the process of developing government policies that prioritize urban agriculture.

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