Food-Oriented Community Development

Content Background

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 Swamp, Food Mirage, 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.

Attempts to Address Hunger

Food Banks

Community Harvest Food Bank (CHFB) is a large organization that handles Food Bank responsibilities for the greater Fort Wayne area (including Noble County). It is the regional food bank for northeast Indiana, serving the counties of Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells, and Whitley. After more than 36 years of operation, Community Harvest has grown to become a nationally recognized regional food bank within the Feeding America network. Rejected produce from stores such as Walmart and food that would otherwise go to waste is trucked from the serviced counties to the central food bank. Here it is housed and redistributed through its on-site grocery store-like distribution center - the community cupboard, mobile farm wagons carrying perishable foods to drop off locations throughout the service area, a no-questions-asked food giveaway every Saturday, and other programs for seniors and children. Notably this food bank also has its own working farm where it grows fresh produce for distribution as well as a gleaning program to collect donated food from farmers' fields. When fresh vegetable supply exceeds demand the remainder can be preserved in their on-site produce preservation center. The preservation center also acts as an incubator providing certified commercial kitchen space to local food entrepreneurs. You should also be aware of government programs that shift excess commodity foods from the for-profit sector to the food bank. These government programs that use tax payer money to buy American overproduction to redistribute to food banks are The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). Both of these programs saw increased funding and usage during COVID both because demand increased but also - due to the shutting down of restaurants, school meals, etc. - there was a glut of meat, milk, and produce on the market. The USDA Farmers-to-Families Foodbox program is another example of COVID-era attempts by the government to buy surplus production and redistribute it. In fact, the food bank system as a whole has been instituted to preserve corporate profits, ensure manufactured food scarcity, and stabilize commodity prices in times of surplus production (and here).

Now inflation coupled with wage stagnation is sending more folks to the foodbank.

This facility is also rented out to local entrepreneurs who need a commercial kitchen in order to offer their food products for sale. CHFB has a variety of programs on offer including (i) Farm Wagon, (ii) Saturday Helping Hands, and (iii) Community Cupboard - please check out all of their programs with the link provided above.

Developing a Food Utility