We are actively growing a new Community of Practice to help you and your community understand the ag and food enterprise viability, market dynamics and other key socio-economics metrics of local and regional food systems.
This project provides open-access tools and data to illustrate areas of need and opportunities to close equity gaps related to nutrition, food access, food system labor, and agriculture and food business ownership.
To better understand and inform regional approaches to food system governance, this project centers on the contributions and insight offered by participants in a community of practice that includes representatives from 11 regional councils. These councils reflect a diversity of approaches to regional food system work from across the United States.
This community of practice represents a virtual collection of emerging research, program evaluations and initiatives that seek to improve understanding of the complexities and economic potential of local and regional food systems, and their contributions to community and business development.
Through its support of the Toolkit , USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service and its research partners have come to realize the importance and power of gathering community-based evidence that provide real-world illustrations of benefits associated with local food investments, while identifying the most appropriate and effective practices for advancing local food systems development.
Funding Provided by USDA AFRI and USDA AMS
