Community Food Systems Planning: A Strategic Opportunity for Improving Food Security, Health, and Wellbeing
Tomorrow, on Thursday, June 29th, 2017 from 11:00am to 12:30pm in Rome, Italy, Dr. Samina Raja will be presenting as part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations before its 40th annual conference session this July.
The presentation will provide insight on how food systems can be addressed by harnessing the power of planning to strengthen communities’ food systems. Places such as cities, towns, and villages that humans inhabit are routinely designed and planned by planners representing local and other sub-national governments to provide a host of services and infrastructure including roads, sewer, housing, and jobs. Unfortunately, planners largely overlook the food systems when planning for future of communities. Integrating food systems thinking into urban/regional/territorial planning has emerged as a global need. Such integration – commonly known as food systems planning – is a fairly new area of planning practice. At its best, food systems planning is rooted in the collaborative partnership among food system community stakeholders, including farmers, retailers, processors and consumers, and the local and regional governments. The seminar will serve as basis of discussion of the challenges and opportunities in the horizon to implement community food system planning.