From the American Planning Association website:
May 29 — The York County Planning Commission says it favors establishing performance standards for agricultural operations — namely oyster farms — rejecting two of the three options that the Board of Supervisors asked it to study. Full article.
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Community Services (OCS) will award up to $9.5 million in Community Economic Development (CED) discretionary grant funds to Community Development Corporations (CDCs) for community-based efforts to improve the economic and physical health of people in areas designated as food deserts. Additionally or as an alternative, applicants can point to indicators of need, such as poor access to a healthy food retail outlet, a high percentage of low-income residents, incidence of diet-related health conditions, or high concentrations of persons eligible for food assistance programs. Through the CED program and within the framework of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (CED-HFFI), OCS seeks to fund projects that implement strategies to increase healthy food access, foster self-sufficiency for low-income families, and create sustained employment opportunities in low-income communities. To do this, the CED-HFFI program will provide technical and financial assistance for healthy food ventures designed to: (1) improve access to, and purchase and consumption of healthy, affordable foods; and (2) address the economic needs of low-income individuals and families through the creation of employment and business opportunities in low-income communities. CED-HFFI grants will be made as part of a broader strategy to address objectives such as decreasing dependency on Federal programs, chronic unemployment, and community deterioration in urban and rural areas. CED projects are expected to actively recruit low-income individuals to fill the positions created by CED-funded development activities, and to assist those individuals to successfully hold those jobs and ensure that the businesses and jobs created remain viable for at least one year after the end of the grant period. CED-funded projects can be non-construction or construction projects. The grant period for non-construction projects is 3 years; for construction projects, the grant period is 5 years. The CED program permits facility construction as needed to support business creation, business expansion, and/or job creation. However, it is important to note that short-term construction jobs associated with preparing for business startup or expansion are not counted when determining the number of jobs created under the CED program as they are designed to be temporary in nature.
Bonus points will be awarded for proposed healthy food projects that involve collaboration with other Federal HFFI Programs and Certain Additional Federal Programs that Address Healthy Food Access, target rural communities and that will be located in one of the following states or Trust Territories that do not have an active CED-HFFI project: Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Island of Guam, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Deadline: 7/21/2014
http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=255897
Growing Food Connections is mentioned in the Telegraph article on 10 Ways to Teach Your Child to Eat Well.
This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Posted by Tawny Mata, Senior Advisor, Office of the Chief Scientist
Food ties all of humanity together, and making sure there is enough to go around while conserving our natural resources is critical to USDA’s mission. Our researchers think about how to sustainably produce greater quantities of safe and nutritious food every single day. Our in-house science agency, the Agricultural Research Service, has labs across the country that work on just those problems, while our National Institute of Food and Agriculture seeks out the most promising ideas from our university partners and awards the funding needed to get started.
Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh perspective to make a big jump in progress.
That’s why USDA is in cooperation with Agricultural Innovation Prize: Powered by 40 Chances to find the best new ideas for addressing the challenges in agriculture and food systems. This competition, coordinated by the University of Wisconsin at Madison with support from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, will award $215,000 in prizes to students with the most promising innovations in agriculture. The grand prize winner gets $100,000!
USDA is reaching out to its university partners to pass the word along to potential contestants and to its own agency scientists to serve as mentors to help teams take their idea to the next level.
If this challenge sounds fun and important and you’re ready to sign up as a contestant, go to http://agprize.com for more information about the scope, prizes and timeline for the competition. You must submit your idea by February 28th, 2014, so get brainstorming! We here at the USDA can’t wait to see what you can do.
And if you want to be a judge or a mentor to student teams, head over to http://agprize.com/information-for-the-public/judges to get involved.
– See more at: http://blogs.usda.gov/2014/02/04/student-agricultural-and-food-systems-innovation-prize-launched-help-innovate-agriculture/
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Growing Food Connections, a research, planning and outreach initiative to strengthen community food systems across the United States, has launched www.GrowingFoodConnections.org as a resource repository for communities looking to broaden access to healthy food and sustain their local farms and food producers through public policy.
Led by the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab at the University at Buffalo in partnership with Cultivating Healthy Places, Ohio State University and American Farmland Trust, Growing Food Connections (GFC) will target 10 “Communities of Opportunity” – communities poised to tackle their food access challenges and agricultural viability – with an intensive program of education, training, technical assistance and extension activities.
The five-year, $3.96 million initiative is funded by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. American Planning Association is a key project partner along with a National Advisory Committee of esteemed leaders in agriculture, food systems and public health.
“Communities increasingly are looking for ways to connect their populations – particularly the under-served – with healthy, affordable and culturally acceptable food while fostering a viable agricultural sector,” said Samina Raja, PhD, UB associate professor of urban and regional planning, director of the Food Lab and a principal investigator for Growing Food Connections.
The new website, along with GFC’s direct extension activities in these communities, led by the American Farmland Trust, will ensure planning officials have the tools they need to develop, implement and maintain policy solutions to sustain agriculture and strengthen their food systems.
“This effort is unique,” suggests Julia Freedgood, Assistant Vice President of Programs at American Farmland Trust, “because it builds capacity of local governments to support family farmers and ranchers as a path toward community food security.”
Kimberley Hodgson, planner and principal of Cultivating Healthy Places notes that “the website will provide local government officials with a range of tools to assist them in developing their own food system plans and policies.” A social networking forum and webinars will support information sharing and peer-to-peer dialogue across participating communities. Forthcoming is a comprehensive database of local and regional public policies, from food production ordinances to food system plans and local procurement policies, to facilitate policy change.
With information on continuing education, doctoral programs in food systems planning and policy at Ohio State University and University at Buffalo and student internship opportunities, the website also supports GFC’s goal to develop an educational framework for the next generation of food systems planners.
For more information, visit: www.GrowingFoodConnections.org.
In recent years, planners have become more involved in issues surrounding food and the development of equitable policies on issues that affect the food system. Efforts include enhancing access to healthy foods, promoting food security, and preserving agricultural land. Such strategies can have a significant impact on public health, and in particular impact the health of vulnerable populations. These groups include children, people with disabilities, minorities, and individuals and families with low incomes, among others.
Read the full article at APA: http://www.planning.org/research/foodconnections/
UB faculty member Samina Raja has spent the better part of the past decade conducting research in the field of food security and heading the only research laboratory in the United States dedicated to food systems planning.
Now, Raja, associate professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, has received a $3.96 million grant from US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to extend research she has conducted in Buffalo and Western New York to communities across the US. Growing Food Connections is a major research and training initiative that seeks to strengthen local and regional food systems by building the capacity of local governments to reconnect farmers with underserved consumers.
Read the full article: http://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/research/news.host.html/content/shared/university/news/ub-reporter-articles/stories/2013/raja_food_connections.detail.html
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced more than $75 million in grants for research, education and extension activities to ensure greater food security in the United States and around the world. The awards were made to teams at 21 US universities to conduct research that will find solutions to increase food availability and decrease the number of food insecure individuals.
The University at Buffalo (UB) is one of the US universities that received this prestigious grant. The focus of the UB- funded initiative (formally titled Building Local Government Capacity to Alleviate Food Deserts) is to build the capacity of local governments to reconnect farmers with underserved consumers.
For the full USDA announcement, visit: http://www.nifa.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2013news/02271_food_security.html