AFRI Global Food Security Project: Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast with Regional Food Systems

This large-scale, interdisciplinary, multi-state and integrated project is being led by the Northeast Center and it addresses concerns over growing food insecurity in the region. Regional Food Systems (RFS) offer significant potential for improving food access for vulnerable communities while strengthening local economies. However, comprehensive evaluations of these food systems and education about lessons learned are needed to realize this potential. To address these inherently complex systems, our interdisciplinary team of scientists and expert practitioners will evaluate multiple consumption, distribution and production components of RFS in the Northeast along with their associated feedbacks and interdependencies, across multiple scales and nested supply chains for a "healthy food basket." We will examine structural, institutional, community and individual dimensions of regionally produced, healthy food consumption in disadvantaged communities. Site specific, seasonal "best practice" supply chains serving nine case study populations will be evaluated to understand the viability of scaling up and scaling out specific value chains to alleviate food insecurity among the underserved.

NE AFRI-GFS Project Overview

Project Overview Presented at the 2011 NEASDA Annual Meeting, June 5-7, 2011, Jay, VT.

USDA-NIFA's Press Release of Grants to Improve Sustainable Food Systems and Reduce Hunger is at: http://www.nifa.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2011news/05051_food_availability.html

Project Contacts

The Economics of Food Insecurity in the United States, Craig Gundersen, Brent Kreider, and John Pepper, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (2011) volume 33, number 3, pp. 281–303

Access to grocers doesn't improve diets, study finds, Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2011

Geographic Differences in the Relative Price of Healthy Foods, Jessica E. Todd, Ephraim Leibtag, and Corttney Penberthy, USDA Economic Research Service, Economic Information Bulletin Number 78, June 2011.

Developing viable farmers markets in rural communities: An investigation of vendor performance using objective and subjective valuations, T.M. Schmit and M.I. Gomez, Food Policy, 36 (2011): 119-127.

Dietary Implications of Supermarket Development: A Global Perspective, Corinna Hawkes, Development Policy Review, 26, 6 (2008): 657-692.

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