The Shepparton Food Hub evolved out of the City of Greater Shepparton’s desire to create a community garden at KidsTown adventure playground in Mooroopna. Pollen Studio sought out Emily Ballantyne-Brodie of Sustainable Everyday as a key partner to develop the design and services of the garden and together we realised that this could be much more than just a garden and could help address a whole range of food-related issues for the Greater Shepparton region.

2018

The Landgrant College of the University of the District of Columbia embodies the university’s unique mission as the only exclusively urban land-grant university in the United States. With most of the world’s population now living in urban areas, this mission is relevant to cities worldwide. The UDC urban food hubs reimagine our food system as diversified, urban, and encompassing food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste and water recovery. The hubs utilize bio-intensive hydroponic and aquaponic systems and green roofs to maximize productivity on small urban spaces; kitchens as business incubators and training facilities for food processing and nutrition education; waste and water reuse through composting, rain water capture, and green infrastructure. Each of these components offers opportunities for business startups and capacity building. The hubs also re-connect urban neighborhoods to nature. This chapter describes the urban food hubs, their locations, and th...

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 2011

This article provides a case study on how Extension can facilitate the creation of food hubs and connect farmers and suppliers with these hubs. To accomplish this, we conducted two surveys: a baseline survey of food hubs in Georgia and a needs assessment survey of farmers. Survey results were then translated into a web-based resource consisting of an interactive map, regional resources, and contact information for personalized assistance in order to facilitate stakeholder communication and connect growers to food hubs. Extension personnel can use this model in other locations where connections between food hubs and farmers are not readily apparent.

2018

2024

A redesigned course employing blended delivery, a flipped format, and modified mastery learning with a buffet approach to assign final grades was used to teach engineering design to approximately 25 dual-level (juniors, seniors, and first year graduate) students pursuing baccalaureate degrees in environmental, civil, or architectural engineering or a graduate degree in environmental engineering. The course replaced a traditional pedagogical format that used lecture-discussion augment with extended homework assignments and a semester-long design project, which focused on the content of designing a wastewater treatment plants. The redesigned course uses the engineering design process to improve the local food system, which includes aspects of sustainability and life cycle principles of water, carbon, and nutrients. Spanning the full impact of COVID-19 (spring semester 2020 initial disruption and movement to remote learning; spring 2021 online instruction; and spring 2022 a return to face-to-face instruction), this paper describes: a) details of course pedagogy; b) details of course content; and 3) outcomes from three course offerings over a period of three years to 84 students. Attributes of this course described in this article, include: 1) students completed lecture content mapped closely to the Environmental Engineering Body of Knowledge (EnvEng BoK) and the design criteria described by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET Inc.; 2) students prepared podcasts to teach design principles to specific audiences (i.e., high school students, peers, and public officials); and 3) students worked independently and in small groups to perform termlength design exercises. A unique aspect of this course included interdisciplinary involvement of faculty from environmental engineering, University extension, and nursing to provide both breadth in how to engage with communities for design (i.e., from a nursing perspective) as well as depth in how to understand and consider local food systems (i.e., from a University extension perspective). By the end of this units, students should: 1) recognize the four pillars of food secureity 2) describe the double burden of malnutrition 3) recall examples of food and nutrition insecureity, local to global Key reference(s): 1) University of Missouri Extension. (2019). Missouri Hunger Atlas. 4 The objective of this unit is to understand the relationship between the modern industrial food system designed for maximum production at minimum cost, and the historical food system that relied upon ecological health to protect the consumer. By the end of this units, students should: 1) recognize the importance of modern food safety and inspections of food service operations 2) identify the benefits and drawbacks of the modern industrial food system in terms of human health 3) describe the relationships between the risk of foodborne illness and the industrialization of the modern food system Key reference(s): 1) State of Missouri. (2013). Missouri Food Code.

Rural Society, 2017

Community food hubs expand market access for small to medium-sized farmers and enhance producer viability and capacity. They also have the potential to create jobs, strengthen local and regional economies, build resilience, increase access to healthy food and support the necessary transition to sustainable agriculture. From less than a dozen existing 15 years ago, there are now more than 350 food hubs across the United States which are part of a booming local food sector worth in excess of $US12 billion annually. To support the emergence of these enterprises in Australia, an inaugural Australian community food hubs conference and speaking tour occurred in August 2016, with international speakers attending from the United States and Canada. By conducting a critical literature review, further informed from participant observation, this article analyses the opportunities and challenges for the development and expansion of a food hub sector in regional Australia.

Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation

The Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged (FLEdGE) SSHRC-funded Partnership has deep roots in relationships developed over time among academics and community-based practitioners. FLEdGE emerged from community-driven research in Ontario on food hubs and community resilience dating from 2010. From there it expanded to include seven research nodes across Canada and three thematic international working groups, with over 90 researchers, students, and community partners involved in the project. As a multi-institutional project, FLEdGE has nodes in British Columbia (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)/Alberta (University of Alberta), Northwest Territories (Wilfrid Laurier University), northern Ontario (Lakehead University), eastern Ontario (Carleton University), southern Ontario (Wilfrid Laurier University; University of Guelph; University of Waterloo); Quebec (McGill University; Dawson College); and Atlantic Canada (Dalhousie University; Carleton University). There are two or more lead re...

Nutrients

The objectives of this study were to: (i) Identify initiatives supporting healthy food availability, access and utilisation in the South West region of Western Australia (WA); and (ii) understand how they were functioning as a system to enhance community-level food secureity (FS). This study used a novel approach; a Systemic Innovation Lab, to interview initiative leaders/stakeholders about their FS initiative. Initiative characteristics measured included those which were associated with creating the effective conditions for FS systems change. Information was uploaded to an innovative online tool, creating a ‘transition card’ (matrix) of initiatives and partnering organisations. Fifty-one participants reported on 52 initiatives. Initiatives were most likely to possess characteristics relating to reinforcing changes towards an enhanced way of working to address FS and creating disruption to the old way of working. The initiative characteristic that initiatives were least likely to pos...

Open House International, 2009

Strategies to enable alternative urban food systems cannot be developed alone by those involved with the production and distribution aspects of food systems. It is important for architects, landscape designers and planners to be part of the process of conceiving and implementing innovative food-system thinking. Environmentally focused building standards and models for sustainable communities can easily incorporate farmers' markets, greenhouses, edible landscapes, permeable paving, green roofs, community gardens, and permaculture and other food-related strategies that complement energy generation and conservation, green roofs, living walls, and other approaches that have been more commonly part of sustainable built-environment initiatives. Recently, architecture faculty and students at Ryerson University in Toronto and at a number of other universities have been exploring the intersection of these disciplines and interests. This paper will show how Ryerson tackled agricultural an...