There is a growing demand for new research, scholarship and education in the field of food systems planning and policy. To build the capacity of the next generation of food systems scholars and faculty to address this need, Growing Food Connections supports doctoral education in food systems planning and policy.

In spring of 2013, Growing Food Connections (GFC) launched the first-ever doctoral fellowship in food systems planning in the United States at the University at Buffalo (UB). Named after the father of food systems planning, Professor Jerome Kaufman, FAICP, the Kaufman fellow at the University at Buffalo works on GFC-related research, as well as their own own dissertation research. The inaugural Kaufman fellow, Dr. Subhashni Raj, graduated in 2018.

Kaufman fellows receive their doctoral degree through the PhD program in Urban and Regional Planning at the UB School of Architecture and Planning. The program is the first and only doctoral program in urban and regional planning in the State University of New York system, and the only one in the country to have food systems planning as one of its five focal areas.

Growing Food Connections partnership supports doctoral education in food systems planning at the Ohio State University (OSU). Doctoral students at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs have the opportunity to focus their doctoral research on food systems policy and work closely with GFC.