Growing Food Connections is a diverse partnership of community experts, researchers, and policy actors from across the United States.
Researchers, educators, students, planners and partners work to understand the barriers and innovations to strengthen food systems through local government policy tools and training. In addition to building capacity of communities, the team nurtures future educators and scholars.
Growing Food Connections was seeded by a grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2012-68004-19894, and continues to be supported by the UB Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab.
From 2012-2017, the project was guided by an inaugural National Advisory Committee with representation from diverse disciplines, regions, and backgrounds. Growing Food Connections continues with a diverse partnership of researchers, extension and planning practitioners and food systems stakeholders that play a role in the research, planning & policy and education advanced by Growing Food Connections.
Four investigators, representing academic and professional realms, launched the research, practice (extension and planning practice), and education activities of the project, and actively engaged with it from 2012-2017. Since 2017, Growing Food Connections is led and supported by the UB Food Lab faculty affiliates, researchers, and staff.
Founding team members
Samina Raja, PhD
Principal Investigator, Growing Food Connections
SUNY Distinguished Professor, School of Architecture and Planning, University at Buffalo
Principal Investigator, Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab
Jill Clark, PhD
Co-Principal Investigator, Growing Food Connections
Professor, John Glenn School of Public Affairs, Ohio State University
Julia Freedgood, MA
Co-Principal Investigator, Growing Food Connections
Assistant Vice President of Programs, American Farmland Trust
Kimberley Hodgson, MURP, MS, AICP, RD
Co-Principal Investigator, Growing Food Connections
Principal, Cultivating Healthy Places
Founding Partners: American Planning Association
The American Planning Association‘s Planning and Community Health Research Center (PCH) has undertaken significant work in the area of food systems planning. PCH supported the research, policy & practice, and education activities of Growing Food Connections, to strengthen local and regional food systems planning in the United States.
Founding National Advisory Committee (NAC) Members and community partners
A diverse team of advisors from across the United States guided the project at its inception. Inaugural National Advisory Committee members include Will Allen, Timothy Griffin, Mary Hendrickson, Fred Kirschenmann, Young Kim, Kameshwari (Kami) Pothukuchi, Louie Rivers, Jr. and Eduardo Sanchez. The work of Growing Food Connections continues to be guided by community partners working with the UB Food Lab, including by CARE (Community Advisors for Research that is Equitable) fellows.
Founding Subject Matter Experts
A team of subject matter experts from a wide variety of disciplines deliver workshops and trainings in Communities of Opportunity.
Representatives from Communities of Opportunity help advance an understanding of the policy barriers in their communities, and work with Growing Food Connections to facilitate the deployment of policy tools to strengthen food systems.
Representatives from Communities of Innovation help Growing Food Connections understand the innovative policies, programs and public investments that work to reconnect farmers to food insecure populations in their communities.