Full Coverage: Growing Food Connections

An article reports on progress being made on the Growing Food Connections, an initiative designed to strengthen local food systems and help underserved residents and farmers in Chautauqua County, and notes the initiative is led by the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab at UB.

An article on KRWG-TV in New Mexico reports Dona Ana County has been selected as one of eight communities from across the country to receive training and assistance to connect family farmers and local residents who lack access to healthy food, and quotes Samina Raja, associate professor of urban planning. “By leveraging the assets within their communities, our partners in this initiative are well-positioned to emerge as policy innovators among the 38,000 local governments in the U.S. that have traditionally overlooked the importance of the food system as a public infrastructure,” she said.

An article reports that Growing Food Connections, a national initiative led by UB Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning Samina Raja, will help Jamestown and seven other communities nationwide link family farmers to local residents who lack access to healthy food. Other news outlets in Upstate New York and Georgia also reported on the project.

A story on WIVB-TV reports on a new study that shows agriculture is one of the best fields for recent college graduates, and interviews Samina Raja, associate professor of urban and regional planning. “We in Western New York have the advantage of having water and land available to us so I can only imagine we’ll be one of those regions where the growth would be even higher,” she said. “We’re already seeing a great interest in farming.”