Members of the Growing Food Connections team are featured in the latest issue of the Metropolitan Universities Journal.  The article reflects on university-community partnerships to strengthen food systems planning, and pulls from case examples not only nationally from Growing Food Connections but also from Buffalo and Erie County, New York, home of the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab. Read the article here .

Attention undergraduate and graduate students looking for ways to make the world better. Here’s your chance! Apply to these paid summer internship positions in environmental leadership at the University at Michigan Ann Arbor designed for traditionally underrepresented students.

The Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program is looking for future pioneers in the changing field of conservation. The program immerses students in an experiential learning program that incorporates diversity and inclusion into the understanding of conservation practices.

The program has openings for both graduate and undergraduate scholars. The deadline is January 31 for graduate students, and February 08 for undergraduates. Information about the graduate and undergraduate programs is available via the links or through visiting ddcsp-umich.com.

The University at Buffalo invites outstanding candidates to apply for a postdoctoral position in food equity to join the university-wide Community on Global Health Equity

About the position

Applications are invited for an outstanding postdoctoral scholar to join a university-wide interdisciplinary research initiative on Food Equity and Global Health. Joining an interdisciplinary team of faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and research staff across multiple schools, including the Schools of Public Health and Health Professions, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the selected postdoctoral scholar will focus her/his research on alleviating food and nutritional inequities by harnessing the power of non-health disciplines including architecture, applied economics, engineering, international development, social work, urban, regional and rural planning and policy, and related disciplines. The candidate will join the Food Equity project, and develop a research portfolio working under the guidance of faculty mentors in the School of Architecture and Planning, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the School of Public Health and health Professions.

Eligibility requirements

Candidate must hold a doctorate in the following or related fields: urban and regional planning, international development, food systems, engineering, and/or public policy.  An eligible candidate’s dissertation and research interests should be related to advancing food equity and public health in a global setting, preferably in low-resource communities.

Skills and experience

Experience in conducting interdisciplinary research on food systems, food equity, and nutrition-related issues are essential. Supervision of graduate student research will be helpful. Candidates with quantitative or qualitative methodological strengths are welcome to apply. Familiarity with use of spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems is welcome. Applicants from engineering disciplines will need to demonstrate capability in modeling complex systems; dealing with large quantity of data are a plus.

Responsibilities

Selected candidate will conduct independent research with guidance from Drs. Samina Raja, Li Lin, Korydon Smith, and Pavani Ram. Candidates are encouraged to identify a principal mentor among this faculty group. Candidate will also collaborate closely with faculty aligned with the Food Equity Project within the Community of Global Health Equity. The department home for this position will be Urban and Regional Planning.
The candidate will be expected to contribute intellectually to the research portfolio of the Food Equity Project of the UB CGHE through research-related activities, including generating original scholarship and contributing to ongoing research through the UB CGHE.

About the UB Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity

The grand challenge of global health inequity is one of the defining issues of the 21^st century, attracting unprecedented levels of interest and the attention of thinkers who are concerned about the underlying social, economic, political, and environmental factors of this challenge, in addition to the biomedical manifestations. The UB Community for Global Health Equity (CGHE) was established in July 2015 to bring the strength of UB faculty across many disciplines to bear on this most vexing of world problems. The UB CGHE advances global health equity by harnessing the power of interdisciplinary scholarship and action spanning architecture, planning, engineering, social sciences, and supportive disciplines (APEX disciplines). Read more about UB CGHE here: https://www.buffalo.edu/globalhealthequity.html

The selected postdoctoral scholar will be from an APEX discipline, and will join a team of faculty and researchers across multiple disciplines including public health and APEX disciplines.

The WHO defines health inequity as “unjust differences in health between persons of different social groups.”  These differences between one population (and group) and another are due, in part, to one or more of the following systemic barriers:

1. gaps in foundational science (e.g., lack of drug discovery to treat neglected tropical diseases)
2. socio-cultural barriers or phenomena (e.g., gender gap in provision and utilization of healthcare)
3. ineffectual and/or unjust public policies (e.g., land-use policies that (inadvertently) limit people’s access to nutritious foods)
4. ineffective practices or unequal access to best practices (e.g., lack of safe construction practices in hard-to-reach rural areas)

Low resources and/or low capacity for change at global, social, and/or institutional levels exacerbate these systemic barriers. This Community’s aim is to “influence the influencers,” the leaders, organizations, and policy makers that can reduce or eliminate barriers to improved global health and well-being for all in settings around the world:

1. research bodies (e.g., universities or funding agencies)
2. facilitative/dissemination organizations, including international organizations (e.g., state agency providing assistance to refugees or international organization promoting child health)
3. policy makers and implementers (e.g., ministries of rural development)
4. professional/practitioner organizations (e.g., urban planning organizations or organizations providing healthcare)

Application review, deadlines, and remuneration

Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis. The position is for two years. Salary and benefits are competitive and commensurate with experience. The University at Buffalo is an equal opportunity employer.

Apply online via the UB Jobs interface: https://www.ubjobs.buffalo.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=59675

About the University at Buffalo

The University at Buffalo is a premier, research-intensive public university dedicated to academic excellence. It is the flagship and the largest and most comprehensive campus in the 64-campus State University of New York System. With 27,000 students, the University at Buffalo is a Carnegie Class I research university and a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU). The university offers 83 Ph.D. and 190 master’s degree programs, and has outstanding supercomputing, library, and research facilities, including numerous interdisciplinary centers and institutes for faculty collaboration. The University at Buffalo has three campuses: UB South campus, UB Downtown campus, and UB North Campus.

The post-doctoral position will be housed in the Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity located in historic Hayes Hall on UB’s South Campus.

The UB South Campus, home to the School of Public Health and Health Professions and the School of Architecture and Planning, is located in the University Heights neighborhood with coffee shops, eateries, bookstores, and a full array of commercial outlets and services. The campus is highly accessible, situated on a subway and other transit lines. Housing opportunities are abundant and affordable. With a combined population of 9.7 million, the binational Niagara region of Western New York and Southern Ontario offers a high quality of life and an exceptional setting for engaging planning issues. The region spans an international border, and includes large cities, varied suburbs, dramatic landscapes, and quiet villages. For additional information about the University at Buffalo and the community, see http://www.buffalo.edu/community.

Contact information

Dr. Samina Raja, Associate Professor and Community for Global Health Equity faculty sraja@buffalo.edu

Dr. Lucia Leone at the University at Buffalo, in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University and Community Nutrition Partnership’s Veggie Van program, is developing a toolkit and technical assistance program for new mobile produce markets across the country. She is looking for mobile produce markets at different stages of planning and operation to both assist with the toolkit development (for more established mobile markets) and to potentially receive technical assistance (for new or developing mobile markets). She anticipates that funding will be available for organizations at both levels.
If you represent an organization that is planning or operating a mobile produce market, please complete a brief survey to help her better understand the types of mobile market programs that currently exist and to identify potential partnerships.

Please respond by January 18.

For additional information contact: Lucia A. Leone, PhD
Assistant Professor of Community Health and Health Behavior
School of Public Health and Health Professions
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
lucialeo@buffalo.edu

The food systems planning activities happening in Dona Ana County, one of the Growing Food Connections Communities of Opportunity, are featured in an article by Take Part.  Titled How One Borderland Farm is Planting the Seeds of Food Justice, the article describes the work of La Semilla Community Farm’s efforts to address acute hunger and poverty along the U.S. – Mexico border. The community farm, mobile market, healthy food financing fund, youth education programming, indigenous land preservation practices, and other activities contribute to La Semilla’s full systems approach. Read the full article for a review of how La Semilla is taking back their food system. Kudos to La Semilla’s efforts!

The Healthy Planning Leadership Series of webinars will cover healthy food systems planning on November 10, 2016. This webinar will highlight the opportunities within land use planning to simultaneously plan for and address Healthy Food Systems- Particularly important with SB1000, new California legislation that requires local jurisdictions to address food access for disadvantaged communities.

Learning Objectives Include:

-Explain how health and planning can work together to promote a healthy food system
-Use data to understand the needs of a community.
-Emulate innovative programs to promote healthy food access
-Integrate healthy food as a priority into planning polices, such as general plans, specific plans, zoning and local ordinances
-Access braided funding sources to implement healthy food system work

Planning and Public Health Experts Include:

-Matt Raimi, the founder of Raimi & Associates and lecturer at UC Davis Extension and Planetizen

-Jessie Gouck, Lead Program and Policy Specialist with the Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Branch of the California Department of Public Health

Keith Bergthol-d, Executive Director at Fresno Metro Ministry and previously City of Fresno’s Assistant Director of Planning

Who Should Attend?
-Planners
-Public health professionals
-Planning commissioners, elected officials, public works, health care providers and anyone interested in building healthy communities with healthy food systems

Sponsored by The California Chapter of the American Planning Association and Health Officers Association of California

**CM and CME Credit Available**

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Institute for Medical Quality/California Medical Association (IMQ/CMA) through the joint providership of The Health Officers Association of California (HOAC) and the American Planning Association. HOAC is accredited by the Institute for Medical Quality/California Medical Association (IMQ/CMA) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

HOAC designates this webinar for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This credit may also be applied to the CMA Certification in Continuing Medical Education.

For more information and to RSVP, click here.

Growing Food Connections is excited to announce the addition of another publication in the Exploring Stories of Innovation series, a series of short articles that explore how local governments from across the United States are strengthening their community’s food system through planning and policy. Leading the Way: A Legacy of Food Systems Planning and Policy Work in Multnomah County, Oregon describes the past decade of  active involvement in food systems planning and program development in Multnomah County.

In addition to this new publication, the Exploring Stories of Innovation series includes:

• Advancing Local Food Policy in Cabarrus County, North Carolina: Successes and Challenges in a Changing Political Climate
• Baltimore City, Maryland: A Food in all Policies Approach in a Post-Industrial City
• Building from the Inside Out in Region 5, Minnesota: A Rural Region’s Effort to Build a Resilient Food System
• Championing Food Systems Policy Change in Seattle, Washington
• Cleveland, Ohio: A Local Government’s Transition from an Urban Agriculture Focus to a Comprehensive Food Systems Policy Approach
• Healthy Food System in the Heartland: Intergovernmental Cooperation in the City of Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas Advances Food Policy
• Lessons From an Agricultural Preservation Leader: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
• Mayoral Leadership Sparks Lasting Food Systems Policy Change in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Multi-level Governmental Support Paves the Way for Local Food in Chittenden County, Vermont
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: A Mayor’s Office and Health Department Lead the Way in Municipal Food Policymaking
• Private-Public Partnerships: Cornerstone of Food Systems Planning and Policy in Rural Marquette County, Michigan

Beginning in 2012, Growing Food Connections (GFC) conducted a national scan and identified 299 local governments across the United States that are developing and implementing a range of innovative plans, public programs, regulations, laws, financial investments and other policies to strengthen the food system. GFC conducted exploratory telephone interviews with 20 of these local governments. This series highlights some of the unique planning and policy strategies used by some of these urban and rural local governments to enhance community food security while ensuring sustainable and economically viable agriculture and food production.

For more information and to download these free publications, visit http://growingfoodconnections.org/research/communities-of-innovation/.