Food-Oriented Community Development is a strategy often employing an approach called Assets Based Community Development. We define food-oriented development as neighborhood or district-scale development that is centered on food and generates a host of benefits for communities, including:
Equitable economic development for low-income residents and regional producers
Genuine expression of the unique cultures found within a given neighborhood or city
An explicit health-promotion lens
The creation of a sense of place where arts and culture are embedded in community development
More specifically - some have used the term Equitable Food-Oriented Community Development (EFOD) which further emphasizes and honors local food ways and food sovereignty and the role of inherent and intrinsic community assets. EFOD is defined as an approach to community-based development that celebrates food culture and creates equity; it uses food and agriculture to create economic opportunities, healthy communities, and explicitly seeks to build community assets, pride, and power by and with historically marginalized-communities. Some local and regional examples of EFOD (with varying degrees of integrating local assets and cultural perspectives) are the Goshen Heritage Corn Project, Black Oaks Center Farm, Rose Avenue Education Farm, Unity Gardens, the Human Agricultural Cooperative, and Johnnie Mae Farm.
Some terms you should have a handle on for this week: Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Food Access, Food Literacy, Food Justice, Food Apartheid, Food Desert (and problems with the term). Also think about how these terms interact - for example Food Security vs. Food Sovereignty, or also include a comparison with Food Justice.