The Growing Food Connections Essential Food Systems Reader is a collection of published resources that explore local and regional level public policy challenges and opportunities related to the following issues:
- Community food production: efforts to grow, raise and harvest crops, raise animals, fish, hunt or forage food for human consumption in urban, suburban and rural areas
- Community food security: the state in which all members of a community have sufficient and adequate access to healthy, affordable and culturally acceptable food, particularly under-served residents in urban, suburban and rural areas
- Community food connections: the challenges and opportunities of simultaneously improving community food production viability and food security for under-served residents.
The Essential Food Systems Reader includes carefully selected professional reports and articles, books, peer-reviewed journal articles and other resources such as fact sheets, briefing papers and white papers from the American Planning Association, the American Farmland Trust, and other national membership organizations, federal agencies and non-profit organizations. Unlike traditional food systems bibliographies, the Essential Food Systems Reader focuses on resources related to public policy, and the role of the local or regional government in improving community food production and community food security. Collectively, the Essential Food Systems Reader provides a foundation of knowledge on these topics – a starting place for communities wishing to tackle these important issues.
Planning to Eat? Innovative Local Government Plans and Policies to Build Healthy Food Systems in the United States
January 1, 1970
This policy brief provides a synthesis of how local governments across the United States are using a variety of tools, such as plans, regulatory tools, fiscal incentives, and institutional mechanisms,...
North American Food Sector, Part One: Program Scan and Literature Review
January 1, 1970
The first part of a three-part publication, this resource provides an overview of food sector research and practices in cities across North America. The resource assembles a body of research...
Planning for Food Access and Community-Based Food Systems: A National Scan and Evaluation of Local Comprehensive and Sustainability Plans
January 1, 1970
This report provides an overview of results from a multi-year study that identified and evaluated how local comprehensive and sustainability plans are supporting food related goals and policies. The report...
