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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Elanor A. Chapin, MA, Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning Department, Tufts University, 34 High Street, Plainfield, VT 05667, 802-272-4898, ela@vhcb.org

This presentation will address the need to improve community food planning efforts in the United States to improve the many aspects of the food system that affect each community, including public health and nutrition, local economic vitality, cultural heritage and environmental quality. Examining this nation-wide issue at the regional level, I have researched the ways that public planning efforts at the state and regional levels in Vermont can be improved to create a more sustainable food system.

The move towards local food systems is a trend and a movement that is quickly gaining popularity across the United States. In many communities people are organizing programs, projects and planning efforts to develop more local, sustainable and self-sufficient food systems (the concept of local food systems is also referred to as community food systems, regional food systems, or sustainable food systems). Despite the planning profession's professed focus on equitably meeting the needs of the public, planners have long left out food systems while instead focusing on all other basic needs, including housing, transportation, water and air quality. A new discussion is currently emerging in the planning profession acknowledging the need to incorporate food into planning efforts and activities in order to better meet community needs, and my research examines this topic in depth in the region of Central Vermont. I will explain what a food system is, discuss why planning efforts should incorporate food issues, and present the research conducted in Vermont that looks at the gaps in the food system that have created significant public policy issues (such as food insecurity and hunger, wasting of food products and the loss of family farming culture), and explain community planning and policy initiatives that will contribute to solving these problems in a systems-wide, holistic manner.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Define a local food system and its components.
• Recognize the way different parts of the food system interact (e.g. produce prices for farmers affects affordability for low income familes for local, fresh food products).
• List three ways that public planning agencies and organizations can contribute to improving their regional food system in order to provide healthy food for the region's population.
• Identify concrete ways that promoting local food production can improve the local economy, preserve local cultural heritage and protect the environment, in addition to improving public health.

Keywords: Food Security, Food and Nutrition

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation