Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.
Urban agriculture,urban farming, or urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. Urban agriculture is also the term used for animal husbandry, aquaculture, urban beekeeping, and horticulture. These activities occur in peri-urban areas as well. Peri-urban agriculture may have different characteristics.
Food policy is the area of public policy concerning how food is produced, processed, distributed, purchased, or provided. Food policies are designed to influence the operation of the food and agriculture system balanced with ensuring human health needs. This often includes decision-making around production and processing techniques, marketing, availability, utilization, and consumption of food, in the interest of meeting or furthering social objectives. Food policy can be promulgated on any level, from local to global, and by a government agency, business, or organization. Food policymakers engage in activities such as regulation of food-related industries, establishing eligibility standards for food assistance programs for the poor, ensuring safety of the food supply, food labeling, and even the qualifications of a product to be considered organic.
Sustainable cities, urban sustainability, or eco-city is a city designed with consideration for social, economic, environmental impact, and resilient habitat for existing populations, without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same. The UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 defines sustainable cities as those that are dedicated to achieving green sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. They are committed to doing so by enabling opportunities for all through a design focused on inclusivity as well as maintaining a sustainable economic growth. The focus also includes minimizing required inputs of energy, water, and food, and drastically reducing waste, output of heat, air pollution – CO
2, methane, and water pollution. Richard Register first coined the term ecocity in his 1987 book Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future, where he offers innovative city planning solutions that would work anywhere. Other leading figures who envisioned sustainable cities are architect Paul F Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, as well as authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities.
A food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food, in contrast with an area with higher access to supermarkets or vegetable shops with fresh foods, which is called a food oasis. The designation considers the type and quality of food available to the population, in addition to the accessibility of the food through the size and proximity of the food stores.
Farm to School is a program in the United States through which schools buy and feature locally produced, farm-fresh foods such as dairy, fruits and vegetables, eggs, honey, meat, and beans on their menus. Schools also incorporate nutrition-based curriculum and provide students with experiential learning opportunities such as farm visits, garden-based learning, and recycling programs. As a result of Farm to School, students have access to fresh, local foods, and farmers have access to new markets through school sales. Farmers are also able to participate in programs designed to educate kids about local food and agriculture.
A sustainable food system is a type of food system that provides healthy food to people and creates sustainable environmental, economic and social systems that surround food.
This page is an index of sustainability articles.
The term food system is used frequently in discussions about nutrition, food, health, community development and agriculture. A food system includes all processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, distribution and disposal of food and food-related items. It also includes the inputs needed and outputs generated at each of these steps. A food system operates within and is influenced by social, political, economic, and environmental contexts. It also requires human resources that provide labor, research and education. Food systems are either conventional or alternative according to their model of food lifespan from origin to plate.
The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, includes all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth.
The IATP Food and Society Fellows Program provides two-year, part-time fellowships to professionals working to address health, social justice, economic viability, environmental, and other issues in food and farming systems. The program started in 2001 as a collaboration between the Jefferson Institute and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), with the guidance and support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The program is currently administered by IATP and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Woodcock Foundation. Generally, 8-12 fellows are selected each year; 72 fellows have been selected through 2009.
The Ecology Center is a membership-based nonprofit environmental organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It works at the local, state and national levels on environmental justice, health, waste, and community issues. It was formed after the first Earth Day in 1970 by community activists in Ann Arbor. Since its founding, it has run demonstrations and campaigns to promote recycling, health care, education, and awareness about healthy foods and products.
The San Francisco Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance is a local municipal ordinance requiring all persons located in San Francisco to separate their recyclables, compostables and landfilled trash and to participate in recycling and composting programs. Passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2009, it became the first local municipal ordinance in the United States to universally require source separation of all organic material, including food residuals.
The Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) is a federal assistance program in the United States associated with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children that provides fresh, unprepared, locally grown fruits and vegetables and nutrition education to WIC participants. Women, infants and children that have been certified to receive WIC program benefits or who are on a waiting list for WIC certification are eligible to participate in the FMNP.
Florida Certified Organic Growers and Consumers, also known as Florida Organic Growers or FOG, is a non-profit organization founded in 1987. It is classified as a 501(c) corporation. One of the main facets of FOG is Quality Certification Services, a program that extends through 30 states and 14 countries. FOG is also concerned with community outreach and education in order to promote healthy organic lifestyles and social equity.
Phat Beets Produce is an American food justice collective focusing on food justice in North Oakland, California, started by Max Cadji and Bret Brenner in 2007. Their programs include weekly farmer's markets, free produce stands, youth gardens, community supported agriculture programs, food and social justice workshops, and previously, a kitchen and cafe cooperative. Cadji helps residents have access to nutritious food by coordinating between farmers, institutions, and low-income communities to utilize empty land for urban gardening.
Urban agriculture in West Oakland involves the implementation of Urban agriculture in Oakland.
Mandela Partners, formerly Mandela MarketPlace, is a non-profit organization in Oakland, California that works to aid low-income communities in improving access to food and health care resources.
The Food Justice Movement is a grassroots initiative emerging from communities in response to food insecurity and economic pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods. It includes more broad policy movements, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Food justice recognizes the food system as "a racial project and problematizes the influence of race and class on the production, distribution and consumption of food". This encompasses farm labor work, land disputes, issues of status and class, environmental justice, public politics, and advocacy. Food justice is closely connected to food sovereignty, which critiques "structural barriers communities of color face to accessing local and organic foods" that are largely due to institutional racism and the effect it has on economic equality. It is argued that lack of access to good food is both a cause and a symptom of the structural inequalities that divide society. A possible solution presented for poor areas includes community gardens, fairness for food workers, and a national food policy.
East New York Farms! (ENYF) is a community organization created to address food justice issues in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
