Despite producing 70% of the world’s food, small-scale farmers remain undernourished, as do their neighbors throughout the Global South. Improving food security cannot be done by increasing agricultural production alone; a systems approach is needed to advance access to nutritious, culturally meaningful food. To cultivate food equity, we work with both local stakeholders, such as farm operators, and international influencers, like the UNFAO, studying, developing, and implementing cross-sector policies-in-action.
By Samina Raja
Food equity is the expansive concept that all people have the ability and opportunity to grow and to consume healthful, affordable, and culturally significant foods. In an equitable food system, all community members are able to grow, procure, barter, trade, sell, dispose and understand the sources of food in a manner that prioritizes culture, equitable access to land, fair and equitable prices and wages, human health, and ecological sustainability. Food equity requires that food systems be democratically controlled and community stakeholders determine the policies that influence their food system.
A community food system is the soil-to-soil system that enables the production, processing, distribution, acquisition, and consumption of food, and management of food waste. A CFS depends on natural resources, technologies, cultural norms, governance structures, policies and laws that shape and influence how food moves from farm to plate. An equitable CFS enhances the environmental, economic, social, and health equity of a place and its inhabitants. In the Global South, where hunger and malnutrition remain a pressing problem, community food systems are rapidly changing, creating both challenges and opportunities. Because of its complexity and breadth, community food systems are ripe for transdisciplinary scrutiny and innovation.
In cities across the United States and in countries around the world, communities lack the ability and opportunity to access healthful, affordable, and culturally significant foods. In particular, food inequity leads to broken food systems that heighten undernourishment and hunger in low- and middle-income countries.
Co-lead, Food Equity Team; Assistant Professor
Urban and Regional Planning and Community for Global Health Equity
Email: frimpon@buffalo.edu
Co-Director and Founding Co-Lead, Community for Global Health Equity; Co-Lead, Food Equity Team; Project Lead, Plan REFUGE; Professor
Urban and Regional Planning
Hertel Elmwood Internal Medicine Center 900 Hertel Ave. Buffalo, NY 14216
Phone: 716-871-1571
Email: rod2@buffalo.edu
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Community Health and Health Behavior
Sylvia Kelly
Graduate Student; Former Graduate Assistant
Urban and Regional Planning and Public Health and Community for Global Health Equity
Email: sylviake@buffalo.edu
Carrie Sasche
Former Graduate Assistant
Urban and Regional Planning and Community for Global Health
Email: carriesa@buffalo.edu
Zhu Jin
Research Affiliate
Food Systems and Healthy Communities Lab
Email: zhujin@buffalo.edu
Alex Judelsohn
Programs Manager
Global Health Equity
Email: ajudelso@buffalo.edu
Wit Wichaidit, PhD
UB Alumnus
Epidemiology and Environmental Health
Email: witwicha@buffalo.edu
Erin Sweeney
UB Alumna; Former Graduate Assistant
M. Urban and Regional Planning and Community for Global Health Equity
Email: esweeney@buffalo.edu
Subashni Raj, PhD
UB Alumna
Urban and Regional Planning