Farm-to-table
Farm-to-table (or farm-to-fork, and in some cases farm-to-school) is a social movement which promotes serving local food at restaurants and school cafeterias, preferably through direct acquisition from the producer (which might be a winery, brewery, ranch, fishery, or other type of food producer which is not strictly a "farm"). This might be accomplished by a direct sales relationship, a community-supported agriculture arrangement, a farmer's market, a local distributor or by the restaurant or school raising its own food. Farm-to-table often incorporates a form of food traceability (celebrated as "knowing where your food comes from") where the origin of the food is identified to consumers. Often restaurants cannot source all the food they need for dishes locally, so only some dishes or only some ingredients are labelled as local.
Food policy
Ensuring adequate food for families and individuals living in poverty is also a centerpiece of any nation's food policy efforts. In the United States, this aid primarily takes the form of monthly benefits that are calculated based on family income, adjusted for certain deductible living expenses and household size, and can only be used for the purchase of foods. The program known for decades as "food stamps" was revamped and renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2008 to acknowledge the change from paper food stamps to electronic benefit transfer or EBT cards. SNAP is a mandatory spending program; the government must designate funds for the program sufficient to cover benefits for all who meet the eligibility requirements. The farm bill also authorizes funding for SNAP and other nutrition assistance programs, projected to cost $772 billion over the 10-year-period from 2013 to 2022.