Planting Seeds of Change: Strategies for Engaging Asian Pacific Americans in Healthy Eating and Active Living Initiatives

This 23-page report draws on results from an innovative technique called Photovoice involving 28 community members, community-level data of 308 surveys, as well as extensive input from key stakeholders. Planting Seeds of Change highlights the complexity of engaging Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) in healthy eating and active living efforts. It discusses the opportunities and challenges of a community who has a long agrarian history and ties to the food system. It also discusses issues that come with living as an immigrant and resident in a large metropolitan area. The development of community gardens for Asian Pacific Americans was prioritized as a strategy for addressing access to healthy food, physical activity, and public open spaces.Policy recommendations call for increasing initiatives, funding, and trainings that (1) support and integrate cultural competency into community gardens' outreach, planning, and growing, (2) utilize stewardship programs to increase creation of community gardens, and (3) promote community gardens as a model for leadership development programs. Practice recommendations call for incorporating best practices that community gardens can use to increase participation of APAs in healthy food and active living initiatives, such as site assessments, intensive planning sessions with community, workshops on traditional methods and local sustainability, multi-sectoral collaboration, and creation of sustainability plans

Seeding the City: Land Use Policies to Promote Urban Agriculture

Outlines the health, environmental, and economic benefits of urban agriculture; considerations for developing relevant land use policy; legal tools for preserving plots, and other laws. Includes model comprehensive plan language and zoning ordinance

Incorporating funds of knowledge in school gardens

Master's Project (M.Ed.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017Incorporating "funds of knowledge" with schoolyard gardening enriches a child's experience by interacting with their families, local community organizations, school faculty, and other children. A garden community is a social setting and the relationships established by working together cultivate a long-lasting commitment to education. Children are excited to learn, willing to participate, and take ownership of acquiring life skills that are fundamental to pass on from generation to generation. Incorporating "funds of knowledge" provides a venue for those inherited skill sets to be incorporated into the mainstream curriculum of the classroom. The small, yet emblematic, group of children that participated in this project at Leupp Public School were able to gain an appreciation for planting and growing a garden by being Youth Participant Action Researchers. Conducting home visits to some of the family homes also brought an invitation for increased participation in the school garden. The children incorporated their culture of gardening by learning from elders, community gardeners and their families

Refugees, Food Insecurity, and Community Gardens

Nearly nine in ten resettled refugee households endure food insecurity, meaning that they are without “access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” Because western New York resettles hundreds of refugees per year, many of them on Buffalo’s west side, we have a unique opportunity to combat refugee food insecurity

Farm Fresh Foods: What to Know About Growing and Selling Produce in Buffalo

It details local regulations on market and community gardens as well as rules for selling produce. It includes tips to find the right locations to plant food gardens and opportunities for education on growing and selling. It addresses topics such as plant selection and soil safety

Community Design for Healthy Eating: How Land Use and Transportation Solutions Can Help

Examines how the built environment -- land use and lack of grocery stores, poor transportation systems, and sprawling development -- limits access to healthy foods in low-income, inner-city neighborhoods. Profiles efforts to improve food access

The Path to Otopia: an Australian Perspective

This paper is a response to an invitation from SASA to deliver a keynote address on the topic: "The History of Innovative Organic Knowledge: Past, Present (and Future?)” to the Soil Association of South Australia (SASA) on the occasion of the launching of the SASA Historical Research Archive at the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide. It identifies three waves of organic advocacy in Australia. It describes the author's recently published research on the Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society (1944-1955), the world's first society to call itself an "organic farming" society, the first society to publish an organic journal (the "Organic Farming Digest"), and the first society to publish a set of organic agriculture principles. Looking to the future, the term "Otopia" is coined to describe a state of 100% organic agriculture. At the historical rate of growth exhibited by the organic sector (data available for the past 8 years), it will take 584 years to reach a global state of Otopia if we assume arithmetic growth (of 27.1% pa), or 27 years if we assume compounding growth (of 16.4% pa)

Building the Bridge: Linking Food Banking and Community Food Security

This 24 page document surveys the linkages between food banking and community food security, with case studies and interviews of 10 leading food banks and food bankers. In conjunction with World Hunger Year

Guidelines for Sustainable Practices in the Rural Built Environment

This poster provides information about sustainable changes people can make to better improve their health, community and built environment. From what is shown, this can be done through community gardens, pedestrian access and building certifications. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), climate change will have direct and significant health impacts (1), which the Lancet Countdown identifies as disproportionately affecting at-risk populations.(2) The challenges of geographic isolation and lack of population density in rural and remote areas limits adequate access to basic healthcare services, such as primary care, emergency care, and mental health services. Additionally, the health deficit experienced by these populations is at a greater risk from the health impacts of climate change. This study examines climate resilient and sustainable design’s potential for addressing the health impacts of climate change on remote and rural populations