Tompkins County Relocalization Project

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Dear Friends--I thought this might of interest.  
From the BuyLocalNY list.  Tom

From: Goodsell <deerfarm6 AT frontiernet.net>
To: RCFP <RCFP AT yahoogroups.com>, BuyLocalNY <BuyLocalNY AT yahoogroups.com>,
         "NYFoodshed AT yahoogroups.com" <NYFoodshed AT yahoogroups.com>,
         "foodpolicyannounce AT yahoogroups.com" <foodpolicyannounce AT yahoogroups.com>,
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 09:41:13 -0500
Subject: [BuyLocalNY] Mapping the NYC Regional Food System
 

The following was included in the Food Systems Network NYC January newsletter. Thought some of you might find it interesting.   -- Martha
 
http://www.foodsystemsnyc.org/articles/udl-nyc-foodshed-initiative
 

Mapping the NYC Regional Food System

by Viktoriya Syrov, Food Systems Network NYC
January 5, 2011

When Michael Conard, Assistant Director of the Urban Design Lab at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, was first asked to consider the rising problem of childhood obesity in 2007, his team of urban designers and architects realized that what was being called for was a wholly new approach. Working with the MIT Collaborative Initiatives, the team embarked on a journey across the United States, funded by a grant from the United Health Foundation, to learn more about the disease and find a viable new solution.

What they came up with would not surprise many of us; the problem lay on the intake side of the energy equation, and much of it had to do with lack of access to healthy food. Through examinations of rural food deserts around the country, it was determined that in order to address the issue of access it would be necessary to develop an integrated regional food system. The second phase of the project “refined the concept of a comprehensive food system” and encouraged collaboration between industry leaders to come up with models for a new national food infrastructure.

“A more resilient, a more sustainable, and healthy system is an integrated regional system,” said Conard. “By building on the good efforts happening locally and regionally and further giving infrastructure to support them, by giving data and supporting funding, we can create a network of regional systems which will provide outcomes and further economic development.”

To start, Conard and his team began by taking the model for an integrated food system and applying it locally. The New York City Regional Foodshed Initiative was announced in 2010, and is comprised of a two-year study that will evaluate the “potential capacity of agricultural production and distribution infrastructure in the New York City region.” Working in partnership with the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Conard and Project Manager Kubi Ackerman will utilize consumption data from sources such as the USDA and Department of Transportation, along with GIS, to analyze and quantify the existing food production in the 200-mile radius of the New York Metro Region, and measure the potential production capacity of the region.


The goal is to “conduct an in-depth examination of the food production and distribution capacity of the New York City Metropolitan Region and to develop specific policy recommendations for enhancing the ability of the City to supply more food from regional sources. The study will incorporate localized land use, soil type, transportation infrastructure, and climatic conditions to assess regional production capacity, and will incorporate actual consumption data for New York City. Additionally, the study will allow for comparison of existing regional production and distribution with potential regional production and distribution to identify concrete possibilities for enhancing regional capacity,” said Ackerman in an e-mail.

Conard, who sees the model to be potentially applicable worldwide said, “The goal is to understand what each region is and what the opportunities are … and on a national level how to support those differences and those similarities.”

Thus far the Urban Design Lab team has advised two major city policy reports using their findings: The 2009 Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer’s “Food in the Public Interest” report and the 2010 “ FoodWorks: A Vision to Improve NYC’s Food System,” prepared by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.  UDL recently presented a report on the NYC Foodshed Initiative at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) Conference, and you can view their presentation here.