Community Food
Assessment
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Columbia County
Community Food Assessment
Links
to pdf excerpts of recent slide shows about different Community Food
Assessment Projects, as well as our current version of the food
resource map, which we hope to have available as an interactive web
mapping tool soon:
"What would Columbia County look like if more people ate
'real
food'?" This question was posed at a Farmers' Research Circle (a
gathering of local farmers) in the fall of 2008, with real food defined
as being locally produced, sustainably grown and minimally processed.
The
discussion amongst farmers surrounding this question, along with focus
groups and other discussions in the community, helped prompt our
current Community Food Assessment Project.
A Community
Food Assessment is a way of exploring the food system as a whole in a
given location, so as to better understand links, gaps, strengths,
synergies, and opportunities.
It's also closely linked to promoting food security, or a "a situation
in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable,
nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that
maximizes community self-reliance and social justice." (Hamm and
Bellows, 2003).
In the
first phase of this project, we've focused on better understanding what
the Columbia County Food System looks like right now, particularly from
a consumer perspective. To learn more about this research, check
out the pdf version of our food resource map, or view excerpts from
presentations that were made this past winter on different aspects of
the community food assessment research we've conducted.
This summer we're continuing to explore the current picture
of what's going on in the food system from a variety of perspectives,
especially those of producers. In upcoming research we also plan
to
link this evolving current picture to both the history of our food
system in Columbia County and its future. We hope to soon create
different potential scenarios that will help provide food for thought
on what we want the future of our food system to look, and, of course,
help answer that original Farmers' Research Circle Question: What
would Columbia County
look like if more people ate real food?
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