Several times a day, food arrives at millions of tables in Washington state. State and local policymakers give remarkably little sustained, systematic attention to how something so universal affects the public's health, the economy and the environment.

Seattle, King County and Washington state have edged toward joining a national trend to set up local and state councils on food policy. But there's still no standing advisory council of farmers, marketers, consumer advocates, environmentalists and health care experts to ensure broad consideration of food issues at the state or local levels.

In Portland-Multnomah County, Ore., Iowa, New York City and other places, the councils take on such issues as sustainable agriculture, school purchases from local farms, healthy food for low-income people and marketing the state's locally produced goods. Those issues hit home here, too. In urban areas of Washington, there has been a vast increase in concern for healthy foods grown in a sustainable manner relatively close to home. On the farm side, better opportunities to market locally can help keep the state's biggest economic sector strong and protect land from urban or suburban development.

As a 2002 paper by Drake University Law School Professor Neil Hamilton noted, there has been a tendency even in farm states to think that all policies come from the federal Farm Bill (which will be up for renewal in Congress in 2007). "But for many issues most directly impacting farmers and consumers, state and local actions can be just as important," he wrote in the Drake Journal of Agricultural Law.

Hamilton traced the history of state food policy councils to North Carolina in 1997. He argued that the councils can improve decision-making at state and local levels by bringing diverse interests together, bringing attention to unexamined issues and fostering broader thinking about food issues.

Most of the work on setting up a Washington food policy council happened in the state Department of Agriculture. Hamilton outlined a model for writing state or local legislation establishing a council. Sylvia Kantor of WSU King County Extension said she and other volunteers on the Seattle-King County Acting Food Policy Council favor legislative action by the county and city councils to set up a permanent body here.

Steve Cohen, who handles the Portland-Multnomah council for Portland's Office of Sustainable Government, said the group has been well received and there are discussions about expanding it to include the other two counties in the regional Metro government. Cohen said he has been surprised nothing has gotten off the ground in this state. He said more emphasis on food policy would fit well with local leaders' emphasis on sustainability, climate change and economic development. Food policy has also helped address Portland concerns about a rural-urban divide.

Both the state and King County face major questions about food, public health and the preservation of viable, thriving farms. Even amid an abundance of food, the public faces growing rates of obesity, diabetes and other nutrition-related health threats. Rather than being rewarded for their successes, farmers, ranchers and orchardists seem to face an endless series of economic threats. The state and local governments need the additional expertise, advice and recommendations from food policy councils to create better ways of nourishing people and the land.

One in an occasional series of editorials about food and health

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