This document discusses strategies to increase food security in Buffalo, NY. It outlines principles of community food security including meeting low-income communities' food needs, building community sustainability through local food resources, empowering self-reliance, strengthening local agriculture, and collaborating across the food system. Existing green programs in Buffalo are analyzed, including a mobile market, gleaning programs, and a cooperative extension which provides education and donations. Maps show residential areas and food store locations. Alternatives like a grocery store truck and farm schools are proposed and SWOT analyses are provided.
New Orleans Food & Farm Network's strategic plan for advancing food justice in New Orleans, increasing food growing in the NOLA foodshed, and supporting the development of the local food supply chain.
Food. Farms. Communities.
“Healthy Living Made Easy” is a 14-lesson curriculum designed to help older adults explore nutrition concepts through activities and discussions. “Healthy Living Made Easy” is a guide to convening discussions and sharing skills to support healthy habits. These discussion and activity guides center the conversation on older adults’ lived experience and emphasize experiential co-education among peers as well as between volunteers and older adults. This is the full "Healthy Living Made Easy" curriculum, handouts to accompany each lesson plan, individual lesson plans, and pretests to gauge your clients knowledge of the nutrition subject.
Owners and managers of affordable housing sites are in a unique position to provide greater healthy food access to their residents, says Bomee Jung, deputy director at Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. (Enterprise) in New York City. Many owners and managers recognize how important fresh food access is for the health and well-being of their residents and are adding healthy food access programs to the amenities and services they offer. We’ll tell you how increasing healthy food access will benefit your site and give you information about the types of food access programs you can consider creating at your tax credit site.
Healthy Food Access: Improve Resident Health. Save Site Money (from Assisted Housing Management Insider)
Residents at assisted sites often have difficulty finding affordable and healthy food. Assisted sites are often located in neighborhoods where food options are limited to convenience stores, liquor stores, or fast food restaurants that offer low-cost but unhealthy snacks and meals. Supermarkets, grocery stores, and other retailers that offer fresh produce and other healthy food choices either may be miles away, making it difficult for residents without transportation to shop for healthier options, or may be too expensive for low-income residents to afford the healthy food.
Indeed, low-income residents who try to buy more produce and other healthy food can spend a disproportionate amount of their monthly income on food, making it more difficult to pay their other expenses. They often must make difficult monthly decisions, whether to use their limited income to buy food or to pay other household expenses, such as their share of the unit’s rent, utilities, healthcare, telephone, and transportation costs to get to or look for work, says Jan Kasameyer, resident services program supervisor at Home Forward, the housing authority in Portland, Ore.
New Orleans Food & Farm Network's strategic plan for advancing food justice in New Orleans, increasing food growing in the NOLA foodshed, and supporting the development of the local food supply chain.
Food. Farms. Communities.
“Healthy Living Made Easy” is a 14-lesson curriculum designed to help older adults explore nutrition concepts through activities and discussions. “Healthy Living Made Easy” is a guide to convening discussions and sharing skills to support healthy habits. These discussion and activity guides center the conversation on older adults’ lived experience and emphasize experiential co-education among peers as well as between volunteers and older adults. This is the full "Healthy Living Made Easy" curriculum, handouts to accompany each lesson plan, individual lesson plans, and pretests to gauge your clients knowledge of the nutrition subject.
Owners and managers of affordable housing sites are in a unique position to provide greater healthy food access to their residents, says Bomee Jung, deputy director at Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. (Enterprise) in New York City. Many owners and managers recognize how important fresh food access is for the health and well-being of their residents and are adding healthy food access programs to the amenities and services they offer. We’ll tell you how increasing healthy food access will benefit your site and give you information about the types of food access programs you can consider creating at your tax credit site.
Healthy Food Access: Improve Resident Health. Save Site Money (from Assisted Housing Management Insider)
Residents at assisted sites often have difficulty finding affordable and healthy food. Assisted sites are often located in neighborhoods where food options are limited to convenience stores, liquor stores, or fast food restaurants that offer low-cost but unhealthy snacks and meals. Supermarkets, grocery stores, and other retailers that offer fresh produce and other healthy food choices either may be miles away, making it difficult for residents without transportation to shop for healthier options, or may be too expensive for low-income residents to afford the healthy food.
Indeed, low-income residents who try to buy more produce and other healthy food can spend a disproportionate amount of their monthly income on food, making it more difficult to pay their other expenses. They often must make difficult monthly decisions, whether to use their limited income to buy food or to pay other household expenses, such as their share of the unit’s rent, utilities, healthcare, telephone, and transportation costs to get to or look for work, says Jan Kasameyer, resident services program supervisor at Home Forward, the housing authority in Portland, Ore.
This report features world capital market performance and a timeline of events for the past quarter. It begins with a global overview, then features the returns of stock and bond asset classes in the US and international markets.
This report features world capital market performance and a timeline of events for the past quarter. It begins with a global overview, then features the returns of stock and bond asset classes in the US and international markets. The report concludes with the performance of globally diversified portfolios and features a quarterly article.
This was a particularly rough quarter overall, with Real Estate and Bonds being the only asset classes in the black.
A Powerpoint presentation to Asheville's City Council regarding food security, the Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council, and possible policies to make Asheville a food secure community.
Engaging Social Entrepreneurs in Community-Based Participatory Solutions to F...Carolyn Zezima
2012 ASFS/AFHVS/SAFN Conference Global Gateways and Local Connections: Cities, Agriculture, and the Future of Food Systems
Carolyn Zezima, Director of Food and Nutrition Initiatives, Communities IMPACT Diabetes Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Despite increasing recognition that fresh, healthy, local foods are scarce in low-income communities, and the creation of a number of healthy food initiatives targeting these communities, historically underserved communities still lack novel, profitable, and sustainable businesses that supply healthy, affordable and taste-satisfying foods. Bringing together the business and public health sectors, Communities IMPACT Diabetes Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine invited business students to submit concepts and plans for viable, market and community-driven business solutions to one of our most pressing public health needs: healthy, affordable food in underserved communities. The proposed enterprises must have served communities with limited availability to healthy foods, be tailored to the particular assets and challenges in the communities, and must be developed in consultation with target communities. Proposals were judged by a panel of experts in business, food and local government. Teams competed for $25,000 in start-up funds and other business support services.
The goal of this toolkit is to help you figure out what local and sustainable food is available in your region, what of it your university could be buying, and what’s missing to make this happen.
By the end of using this toolkit, you’ll know a lot more about the agricultural industry of your area– not just how it’s working now, but how it got to where it is, who’s involved in shaping its future, and how your campus can help.
Feed & Seed is a company located in Greenville, South Carolina. It's a collaborative effort from farmers, educators, policy makers, health experts, and many more to connect food from the farms to our tables.
What is the Dubuque Eats Well? Intro to the Local Food Systems Working GroupCarolyn Scherf
Dubuque Eats Well:
Part of the Regional Food Systems Working Group - Working to create resilient local food systems in Dubuque, Deleware, and Jackson County
This powerpoint discusses different aspects of a community food assessment. It also discusses the role of CED and food security. It compares food programming and CED in Manitoba with that in Saskatchewan
This powerpoint discusses different aspects of a community food assessment. It also discusses the role of CED and food security. It compares food programming and CED in Manitoba with that in Saskatchewan
2. Overview
• According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, food security means that food is
available at all times; that all persons have means of access to it; that it is nutritionally adequate in
terms of quantity, quality and variety; and that it is acceptable within the given culture.
• Food for Growth in Buffalo points out that ensuring food security differs from the concept of feeding
the hungry. Emergency food programs are a short-term measure that only treats the symptom of a
societal problem. Food security in contrast requires proactive steps to create a community food
system that enhances citizens. access to nutritious and affordable food at all times.
• In a community food system, food is grown, produced, processed and disposed at a local level. Since
locally produced and distributed food reduces dependence on long-distance food sources, a
community food system increases community self-sufficiency. A community food system has the
potential to promote ecologically friendly food cultivation methods and encourage community
development. Such a system can also have a significant impact on economic development because it
creates locally based employment and provides opportunities for people to raise themselves out of
poverty.
• According to the Community Food Security Coalition, the term Community Food Security was
developed in 1994 by advocates seeking comprehensive solutions to the nation’s food and farming
crises. It integrates many different fields, such as public health, ecology, community development
and economic development into a comprehensive framework for meeting a community’s food
needs.
A Community Food Security Agenda for New York
3. Overview
There are five basic principles to Community Food Security (CFS):
Low Income. CFS focuses on meeting the food needs of low-income communities.
In addition to providing food to the hungry, it includes job training, business skill
development, urban greening, farmland preservation, and community
revitalization.
Community sustainability. CFS builds up a community’s food resources to meet its
own needs. These resources may include supermarkets, farmers’ markets,
gardens, transportation, community-based food
processing ventures, and urban farms.
Self-reliance/empowerment. CFS seeks to build individuals’ abilities to provide for
their own food needs.
Local agriculture. CFS builds better links between farmers and consumers, helping
to strengthen consumer knowledge and concern about their food source.
Food system. CFS emphasizes collaboration among many partners involved in
farming, processing, distributing, marketing and consuming food products.
A Community Food Security Agenda for New York
5. Food Insecurity- Interviews
According to Kailee Neuner, research
coordinator at the University of Buffalo, a
significant proportion of households with
children under the age of eighteen
experience food insecurity and of the
32,927 households with children in the
City of Buffalo, thirty-nine percent, 12,842
people, receive food assistance. Food
Insecurity among Households with
Children, close to thirty-nine percent of
the people in Buffalo need to rely on
emergency food organizations and
programs in order to feed their
households.
2006-2008 American Community Survey, US Census Bureau
6. Growing Green Mobile Market
• Variety of seasonal fruits,
vegetables, eggs
• Takes multiple forms of payments-
food stamps, WIC-Famers Market
Nutrition Program checks, cash
• Generally lower prices than local
grocery stores and markets
• Operates from June-November
• Only one location in Downtown
Buffalo
Growing Green Program
• Education programs for youth
• The growing green mobile market is
also run by this program
Existing Green Programs
http://mass-ave.org/
7. SWOT: Growing Green
Threats
Lack of parking
Customers may not be
available during the time of
day that the truck is there
Opportunities
Easy to be scaled
Can be implemented
anywhere
Strengths
Residents gain easy access to healthy food
Accepts multiple forms of payment
Residents don’t need cars to get to the food
Most customers live close to truck stop, so
they don’t have far to carry the groceries
Weaknesses
Only available for residents who live in
certain areas of buffalo
Only one stop in Downtown Buffalo
Need to pay the drivers/operators of the
truck
8. Plentiful Partnership of
Niagara
• Poor are asked to pick and
glean- take the left overs
from the main harvest
• Overall, throughout the
county, farmers in 2013
donated 38,516lbs of
produce
• Donates the produce to
food banks/soup kitchens
Existing Green Programs
http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/all-niagara-county/new-plentiful-partnership-of-niagara-aims-to-reduce-lack-of-access-to-fresh-foods-
20140420
http://cceniagaracounty.org/
9. SWOT: Plentiful Partnership of
Niagara
Strengths
• Reduces waste
• Makes progress in alleviating hungry
in the City of Buffalo
• Helps local families in need
• Makes strives to help people in
Buffalo with health problems such
as obesity and diabetes
Weaknesses
• Food banks can’t make it out to pick
up from a farmer
• Farmers get really busy in the heat
of the season
• May not always get a strong amount
of volunteers willing to help out
Threats
• Once all the crops are picked/gleaned,
there’s nothing left to give
• If there is a lack of volunteers, no produce
will be picked
• Volunteers have to get to sites (fields) and if
they don’t have access to a car, it may be
difficult to get there
Opportunities
• If more farmers come onboard, more food
can be collected
• It is easy to scale the organization and
volunteer effort
• Can be implemented in other cities as well,
not just buffalo
10. Cooperative Extension
• Offer education
programs- learn about
agricultural careers, how
to garden, healthy
eating habits
• Also helps glean produce
from harvest
• Donates produce to local
food pantries
• Owns 39 acres and has
16 buildings
Existing Green Programs
http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/all-niagara-county/new-plentiful-partnership-of-niagara-aims-to-reduce-lack-of-access-to-fresh-foods-
20140420
http://cceniagaracounty.org/
11. SWOT: Cooperative Extension
Strengths
Helps educates residents on the food
that in local
Educates people on how to garden
properly and effectively
Helps donate food to emergency food
programs
Teaches healthy eating habits
Weaknesses
People may not be able to attend classes
or events because of where they are
located
Is not located in the Downtown Buffalo
area
Threats
Once all the crops are picked/gleaned, there’s
nothing left to give
If there is a lack of volunteers, no produce will
be picked
If the program grows, there is only so much
space it can grow into
Volunteers have to get to sites and if they
don’t have access to a car, it may be difficult to
get there
Opportunities
Easy to be incorporated into school education
programs/curriculum
Program is for all ages and lifestyles
Educates residents about fresh foods and gives
them tools to help them live healthier lives
13. Residential & Mixed Use Streets
Broadway Street
Google.com/maps
This shows a mixed-use building that we
would like to use to implement our design
solution into. It shows apartments on top
and could possibly have different types of
retail, or in our case healthy convenience
stores, on the bottom floor.
14. Residential & Mixed Use Streets
North Oak Street
Google.com/maps
This is an area in downtown Buffalo that is
more residential and is filled with apartment
complexes usually inhabited by low income
families. As you can see in this picture there
really isn’t any street parking and many of
the residents need to park in the parking lots
provided to them by their apartment
complexes.
15. Google.com/maps
Residential & Mixed Use Streets
South Division Street
This is an area in downtown Buffalo that is
also very residential and has a lot of
housing for families that may have their
own cars. This street provides on street
parking, but is kind of on the outskirts of
downtown Buffalo.
17. SWOT
Grocery Store on Wheels
Strengths
• Able to travel to neighborhoods were people
have a hard time accessing grocery stores.
• Provides healthy food options.
• Provide people with local food.
• Provides new jobs for people.
• Gives people opportunities to new foods
recipes that they can cook for their families.
Weaknesses
• Food might go bad if all of it isn’t sold.
• Certain people may not be able to access it
because of their daily schedules.
• Cost of buying food due to food cost going
up.
• Limited funds may be available to support
truck.
• Cost of fuel
Opportunity:
•Easy to move- keep mobile
•Easy to duplicate and or add
more areas or zones
Threats:
•Lack of parking (street)
•Lack of shelf space
•No conditioning (heating or
cooling) – have to shop outdoors
19. SWOT
Farm Schools
Strengths
• Educating people on how to grow and preserve
healthy food options year round.
• Educating people on affordable food options
that they can grow at their homes.
• Improve the overall socio-economic conditions
of the neighborhood.
• Educate people on how to protect their
environment and the food that is grown locally.
• Promote community involvement
• Encourages balanced uses of fertilizers.
• Reduces cost of production.
Opportunity:
•Can build upon what students learn in school
•Opportunity for entire family to get involved
•Allows individuals to have their own gardening
space
Weaknesses
• Might cause heavy expenses on the
implementation of these farm schools.
• Time consuming process
• Weakly routine to attend school may be
difficult for certain people.
• Lack of classrooms
• May fail if there is less use of mass
media.
• Limited budget
• May fail if there is a low level of farmers
participating in these schools.
• May fail if a poor curriculum is
developed.
Threats:
•Hard to get to any location (no cars)
•Has to be held/done at certain times
21. SWOT
SOLUTION: Healthy Convenience Store
Strengths
• Supports local foods
• Promotes healthy lifestyles
• Provides neighborhoods with produce
that can be bought year round at an easy
location to get to.
• Provides nutritional value and will help
educate pedestrians who live in these
neighborhoods.
• Provide new jobs
Opportunity:
•Easy to retrofit existing spaces
•Can be implemented anywhere
Threats:
•Limited size of store
•People still have to carry groceries home-
limits what you can buy
Weaknesses
• How to maintain or to control how
quickly the produce is sold so that
if doesn’t go bad.
• Budgeting produce so that you can
stay on track of your financial
goals.
• Equipment that is needed to
ensure the best quality of produce
may cost a lot.
• If employees aren’t trained
properly, the produce can go bad
quickly and could be wasted.
• What if the pedestrians in the
neighborhood don’t find the
market to be appealing?
23. SOLUTION:
Healthy Convenience Store
• Create a series of healthy convenience stores in Downtown
Buffalo
• Make sure all Downtown residents are within easy walking
distance from a healthy convenience store (3/4 mile)
• Retrofit existing storefronts-utilizing buildings that are
already vacant
• Convenience stores will also offer grab and go food
29. Healthy Convenience Store
Sustainable Solutions
Louvers: Allow sun to come in under the
overhangs, helps block the wind
Rainwater Cistern: Collects rainwater from
roof, reuses it for flushing toilets and watering
plants
Cross-Ventilation:
Not plausible on first
floor, but helps cool
spaces in apartment
space on second floor
Existing food stores in the area- all are mini marts, not real grocery stores.
Cash register on left, tables with bins (containing fruit/vegetables), and storage in the back
Example of what the stores could look like. They would mainly be multi-use buildings, since they are common downtown. Stores will be created in for sale or empty storefronts.
Minimal parking out front, and a lower floor storefront, upper floor apartment
Minimal parking out front, and a lower floor storefront, upper floor apartment
Minimal parking out front, and a lower floor storefront, upper floor apartment
Housing in downtown buffalo is mainly on outskirts of this boundary, so health convenience stores are located near the main residential areas
