Community Food Initiatives

Community Food Initiatives PDF Author: Oona Morrow
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000892018
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
This book examines a diverse range of community food initiatives in light of their everyday practices, innovations, and contestations. While community food initiatives aim to tackle issues like food security, food waste, or food poverty, it is a cause for concern for many when they are framed as the next big "solution" to the problems of the current industrialised food system. They have been critiqued for being too neoliberal, elitist, and localist; for not challenging structural inequalities (e.g. racism, privilege, exclusion, colonialism, capitalism); and for reproducing these inequalities within their own contexts. This edited volume examines the everyday realities of community food initiatives, focusing on both their hopes and their troubles, their limitations and failures, but also their best intentions, missions, and models, alongside their capacity to create hope in difficult times. The stories presented in this book are grounded in contemporary theoretical debates on neoliberalism, diverse economies, food justice, community and inclusion, and social innovation, and help to sharpen these as conceptual tools for interrogating community food initiatives as sites of both hope and trouble. The novelty of this volume is its focus on the everyday doings of these initiatives in particular places and contexts, with different constraints and opportunities. This grounded, relational, and place-based approach allows us to move beyond more traditional framings in which community food initiatives are either applauded for their potential or criticized for their limitations. It enables researchers and practitioners to explore how community food initiatives can realize their potential for creating alternative food futures and generates innovative pathways for theorising the mutual interplay of food production and consumption. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical food studies, food security, public health, and nutrition as well as human geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in food.

Community Food Initiatives

Community Food Initiatives PDF Author: Oona Morrow
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000892018
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book

Book Description
This book examines a diverse range of community food initiatives in light of their everyday practices, innovations, and contestations. While community food initiatives aim to tackle issues like food security, food waste, or food poverty, it is a cause for concern for many when they are framed as the next big "solution" to the problems of the current industrialised food system. They have been critiqued for being too neoliberal, elitist, and localist; for not challenging structural inequalities (e.g. racism, privilege, exclusion, colonialism, capitalism); and for reproducing these inequalities within their own contexts. This edited volume examines the everyday realities of community food initiatives, focusing on both their hopes and their troubles, their limitations and failures, but also their best intentions, missions, and models, alongside their capacity to create hope in difficult times. The stories presented in this book are grounded in contemporary theoretical debates on neoliberalism, diverse economies, food justice, community and inclusion, and social innovation, and help to sharpen these as conceptual tools for interrogating community food initiatives as sites of both hope and trouble. The novelty of this volume is its focus on the everyday doings of these initiatives in particular places and contexts, with different constraints and opportunities. This grounded, relational, and place-based approach allows us to move beyond more traditional framings in which community food initiatives are either applauded for their potential or criticized for their limitations. It enables researchers and practitioners to explore how community food initiatives can realize their potential for creating alternative food futures and generates innovative pathways for theorising the mutual interplay of food production and consumption. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical food studies, food security, public health, and nutrition as well as human geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in food.

Good Food, Strong Communities

Good Food, Strong Communities PDF Author: Steve Ventura
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609385438
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Good Food, Strong Communities shares ideas and stories about efforts to improve food security in large urban areas of the United States by strengthening community food systems. It draws on five years of collaboration between a research team composed of the University of Wisconsin, Growing Power, the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and more than thirty organizations on the front lines of this work. Here, activists and scholars talk about what's working and what still needs to be done to ensure that everyone has access to readily available, affordable, appropriate, and acceptable food. This book helps readers understand how a food system functions and how individual and community initiatives can lessen the problems associated with an industrialized food system.--Back cover.

The Public Health Effects of Food Deserts

The Public Health Effects of Food Deserts PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309137284
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
In the United States, people living in low-income neighborhoods frequently do not have access to affordable healthy food venues, such as supermarkets. Instead, those living in "food deserts" must rely on convenience stores and small neighborhood stores that offer few, if any, healthy food choices, such as fruits and vegetables. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC) convened a two-day workshop on January 26-27, 2009, to provide input into a Congressionally-mandated food deserts study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. The workshop, summarized in this volume, provided a forum in which to discuss the public health effects of food deserts.

Building Community Food Webs

Building Community Food Webs PDF Author: Ken Meter
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831476
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Our current food system has decimated rural communities and confined the choices of urban consumers. Even while America continues to ramp up farm production to astounding levels, net farm income is now lower than at the onset of the Great Depression, and one out of every eight Americans faces hunger. But a healthier and more equitable food system is possible. In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots food and farming leaders across the U.S. are tackling these challenges by constructing civic networks. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organizations in their quest to build stronger communities. Community food webs strive to build health, wealth, capacity, and connection. Their essential element is building greater respect and mutual trust, so community members can more effectively empower themselves and address local challenges. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Health clinics help clients grow food for themselves and attain better health. Food banks engage their customers to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Developers forge links among local businesses to strengthen economic trade. Leaders in communities marginalized by our current food system are charting a new path forward. Building Community Food Webs captures the essence of these efforts, underway in diverse places including Montana, Hawai‘i, Vermont, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Minnesota. Addressing challenges as well as opportunities, Meter offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders and other grassroots activists alike.

Food Security in the High North

Food Security in the High North PDF Author: Kamrul Hossain
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000095274
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
This book explores the challenges facing food security, sustainability, sovereignty, and supply chains in the Arctic, with a specific focus on Indigenous Peoples. Offering multidisciplinary insights and with a particular focus on populations in the European High North region, the book highlights the importance of accessible and sustainable traditional foods for the dietary needs of local and Indigenous Peoples. It focuses on foods and natural products that are unique to this region and considers how they play a significant role towards food security and sovereignty. The book captures the tremendous complexity facing populations here as they strive to maintain sustainable food systems – both subsistent and commercial – and regain sovereignty over traditional food production policies. A range of issues are explored including food contamination risks, due to increasing human activities in the region, such as mining, to changing livelihoods and gender roles in the maintenance of traditional food security and sovereignty. The book also considers processing methods that combine indigenous and traditional knowledge to convert the traditional foods, that are harvested and hunted, into local foods. This book offers a broader understanding of food security and sovereignty and will be of interest to academics, scholars and policy makers working in food studies; geography and environmental studies; agricultural studies; sociology; anthropology; political science; health studies and biology.

Meeting the Dietary Needs of Older Adults

Meeting the Dietary Needs of Older Adults PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309442273
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Older adults are a growing demographic group in the United States, and a range of physical, social, financial, and cultural factors affect their nutritional status. Metabolic and physiologic changes that accompany normal aging modify the nutritional requirements of older adults. An examination of evidence is needed to better understand how nutritional status is associated with aging and risk of mortality or chronic disease among older adults. Underpinning many, if not most, nutritional problems in older adults is socioeconomic status. Therefore, understanding access challenges to healthy food, including geographic, financial, and transportation barriers, also is needed to better understand how to meet the nutritional needs of older adults. On October 28-29, 2015, the Food and Nutrition Board convened a workshop, Meeting the Dietary Needs of Older Adults, in Washington, DC. Participants examined factors in the physical, social, and cultural environment that affect the ability of older adults to meet their daily dietary needs. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Local Food and Community Development

Local Food and Community Development PDF Author: Gary Paul Green
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317980751
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
Food has become an essential component in community development practice. Whether in reference to building a local or regional food system or addressing food insecurity, food has become a focus in community development approaches in many localities. Farmers markets, community gardens, farm-to-school programs, and other food-centered initiatives have been used to foster community development processes across a spectrum of desired outcomes. The surging interest in food for fostering community development draws attention to numerous applications, ranging from grassroots efforts to formal programs sponsored by the public or nonprofit sectors. These efforts are often in conjunction with local private businesses, helping create micro-businesses and supporting the small farm movement. Some regions are even considering economic development strategies of "food clusters" to promote speciality food businesses and supporting programs. This volume explores the relationships between food and community, and the various approaches for development through a selection of chapters illustrating a wide range of applications. This book is a compilation of articles published in the journal Community Development.

Grocery Story

Grocery Story PDF Author: Jon Steinman
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 1550927000
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Hungry for change? Put the power of food co-ops on your plate and grow your local food economy. Food has become ground-zero in our efforts to increase awareness of how our choices impact the world. Yet while we have begun to transform our communities and dinner plates, the most authoritative strand of the food web has received surprisingly little attention: the grocery store—the epicenter of our food-gathering ritual. Through penetrating analysis and inspiring stories and examples of American and Canadian food co-ops, Grocery Story makes a compelling case for the transformation of the grocery store aisles as the emerging frontier in the local and good food movements. Author Jon Steinman: Deconstructs the food retail sector and the shadows cast by corporate giants Makes the case for food co-ops as an alternative Shows how co-ops spur the creation of local food-based economies and enhance low-income food access. Grocery Story is for everyone who eats. Whether you strive to eat more local and sustainable food, or are in support of community economic development, Grocery Story will leave you hungry to join the food co-op movement in your own community.

Nourishing Communities

Nourishing Communities PDF Author: Irena Knezevic
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319570005
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
This edited volume builds on existing alternative food initiatives and food movements research to explore how a systems approach can bring about health and well-being through enhanced collaboration. Chapters describe the myriad ways community-driven actors work to foster food systems that are socially just, embed food in local economies, regenerate the environment and actively engage citizens. Drawing on case studies, interviews and Participatory Action Research projects, the editors share the stories behind community-driven efforts to develop sustainable food systems, and present a critical assessment of both the tensions and the achievements of these initiatives. The volume is unique in its focus on approaches and methodologies that both support and recognize the value of community-based practices. Throughout the book the editors identify success stories, challenges and opportunities that link practitioner experience to critical debates in food studies, practice and policy. By making current practices visible to scholars, the volume speaks to people engaged in the co-creation of knowledge, and documents a crucial point in the evolution of a rapidly expanding and dynamic sustainable food systems movement. Entrenched food insecurity, climate change induced crop failures, rural-urban migration, escalating rates of malnutrition related diseases, and aging farm populations are increasingly common obstacles for communities around the world. Merging private, public and civil society spheres, the book gives voice to actors from across the sustainable food system movement including small businesses, not-for-profits, eaters, farmers and government. Insights into the potential for market restructuring, knowledge sharing, planning and bridging civic-political divides come from across Canada, the United States and Mexico, making this a key resource for policy-makers, students, citizens, and practitioners.

Local government planning for community food systems

Local government planning for community food systems PDF Author: Raja, S.; Sweeney, E.; Mui, Y.; Frimpong Boamah, E.
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 925133904X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Over the last couple of decades, local governments have started taking action to address food system challenges. Many innovative food policies have taken place in cities in particular. However, despite major developments spearheaded by visionary local leaders and communities in recent years, local governments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) continue to face major challenges in integrating food security, nutrition and sustainable food systems in their agenda. This publication introduces a new knowledge base for understanding food planning and governance processes and models in local governments of low- and middle-income countries, a valuable counterbalance to the prevailing literature and experience from high-income countries. It provides practical insights on the needs, challenges and opportunities in local food planning practice in three countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on reported cases, this publication offers a broad guiding framework and a methodology for subnational government bodies - including city, metropolitan, regional, distinct and parish governments - that takes into consideration the uniqueness of each local context.