Glossary

Agriculture

• The production of food and goods through farming.

Urban Agriculture 

• The growing of plants and the raising of animals within and around cities. The most striking feature of urban agriculture, which distinguishes it from rural agriculture, is that it is integrated into the urban economic and ecological system.

• UA is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food within the urban limits of a village, town, or city. UA can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agroforestry, urban beekeeping, and horticulture.

• Practice of growing plants and raising animals beyond that which is strictly for home consumption or educational purposes, production, distribution, and marketing of food and other products within the core of metropolitan areas and at their edges.

Compost 

• A dark, crumbly, soil like material made from decomposed (or decomposing) organic matter, such as animal manure, food waste, leaves, and grass clippings. Compose is applied to soil as a nutrient-rich fertilizer for plants.

• Organic material that can be used as a soil amendment or as a medium to grow plants. Mature compost is a stable material with a content called “humus” which dark brown or black and has a soil-like earthy smell. It is created by combining organic wastes in proper ratios into piles, rows, or vessels.

Composting 

• A managed process by which fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms to decompose organic matter, such as animal manure and food waste.

Fertilizer 

• Material spread on soil to increase the land’s capacity to promote plant growth. Common fertilizers include animal manure, compost, synthetic (human-made) chemicals, and certain minerals.

Irrigation 

• Human-made methods of delivering freshwater to agricultural fields. Irrigation techniques include the use of flooding, canals, sprinklers, and drip tape (a hose with small holes that releases water slowly).

Manure 

• Animal waste used as fertilizer.

Pest 

• An organism that threatens human interests. Common pests in agriculture include certain plants (weeds), insects, fungi, rodents and bacteria that can kill crops or interfere with their growth.

Pesticides 

• Natural or synthetic chemicals used to kill, repel, or control populations of target organisms (“pests”); includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

Sustainable 

• Able to be maintained in the long term. Agriculture, for example, must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just to be sustainable.

The capacity of being maintained over the long term and meeting the needs of the present without jeopardizing the ability to meet the needs of future generations.

Farmers’ Market

• A farmers market operates multiple times per year and is organized for the purpose of facilitating personal connections that create mutual benefits for local farmers, shoppers, and communities.

Food Distributors

• Intermediaries who pick up food from producers or processors, temporarily store it in large (often refrigerated) warehouses, and transport it to supermarkets, restaurants, and other retailers.

Food Hub

• A centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.

Food Processing

• The practices used by food industries to transform raw plant and animal materials, such as grains, produce, meat, and dairy, into products for consumers. Examples include freezing vegetables, milling wheat into flour, and frying potato chips. Slaughtering animals is sometimes considered a form of food processing.

Food System

• The people, activities, resources, and outcomes involved in getting food from “field to plate,” in addition to preparing and eating food.

• All processes involved in keeping society fed; i.e., growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consuming, and disposing of food and food packages.

Foodshed

• Geographical area between where food is produced and where food is consumed.

• A geographic area that supplies a population center with food.

• Measures the reach of the local landscape in terms of its food production capacities. Its size is determined by its “structures of supply,” the regional, economic, political, and transportation systems that determine how food gets from farm to table.

Local Food

• Food that was produced within roughly 100 to 250 miles of where the consumer lives, or food that is sold directly from a farmer to a consumer or nearby retailer. The term has no strict definition.

Regional Food

• Food that was produced within the region where the consumer lives. A region can be defined by geographic, cultural, or political boundaries rather than size. Regional food systems include, but are not limited to, local food systems.

Supply Chain

• The people, activities, and resources involved in getting food from farm to plate. Major stages along the supply chain include production, processing, distribution, retail, and consumption.

Food Security 

• Having, at all times, both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet dietary needs for a productive and healthy life.

1. Availability- Is food consistently stocked, fresh, meeting the capacity of the neighborhood it serves?

2. Accessibility- Is the location close enough to walk to or near public transportation routes in the neighborhood it serves?

3. Affordability- Is food priced fairly for the median income of the residents for the neighborhood it serves?

4. Appropriateness- Are the types of items stocked providing enough variety to meet the cultural, health, and age diversity of the neighborhood it serves?

Nutrition Security 

• Access to healthy, affordable food that promotes well-being.

Food Access 

• A food-security concept that includes availability or adequacy of supply of healthy food; accessibility or the location of the food supply and the distance to that location (can refer to a community level or within a household); affordability refers to food prices and people’s perception of worth relative to the cost; acceptability or people’s attitudes about attributes of their local food environment and degree that local food meets certain personally held standards; and accommodation or how well local food sources accept and adapt to local residents’ needs, such as store hours and types of payments accepted.

Food Apartheid 

• Systemic and structural inequalities in the environment, resulting in a lack of access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food.

Food Mirages 

• Areas where healthy food options are available, but are not affordable. 

Food Swamps 

• High density of high-calorie fast and junk food with few nutritious options.

Food Oasis 

• Community driven innovative practices empowering inhabitants of food insecure areas to build access to healthy eating environments and foods.

Community Food Security 

• A condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance, social justice and democratic decision making.

• A state in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally appropriate, nutritionally sound diet and clean water through an economically and environmentally sustainable food and water system that promotes community self-reliance and social justice.

Low Income and Low Access areas (LI/LA) 

•  Low Income - Usually defined at 200% of the Federal Poverty Guideline.

• Low Access (urban areas)- 33 % of the population, living .5 mi from the nearest supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store.

• Low Access (rural areas)- 33 % of the population, living 10 mi from the nearest supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store.