The Food Lab is working in Kashmir, a naturally-resource rich region in South Asia. The lab team started work in partnership with the University at Kashmir with a pilot project on haakh (2016-2017), a green leafy vegetable akin to collard greens. Through interviews with small-scale growers, stakeholders, and residents, the team aims to gain an understanding of how land use change and planning decisions impact the production and consumption of haakh. Haakh was chosen for this pilot study as it is beloved by Kashmiris, is an affordable vegetable, and is only grown in the Kashmir region. The Haakh Project is made possible in part by a grant from the University at Buffalo Asian Studies Program.
Category Archives: Global Projects
Plan-REFUGE: Planning for Regenerative, Equitable Food Systems in Urbanizing Global Environments
Launched in 2017, Planning for Regenerative, Equitable Food Systems in Urbanizing Global Environments (Plan-REFUGE) aspires to understand and mitigate food inequities experienced by smallholder farmers in the Global South. Using a transdisciplinary approach, we investigate how small-holder farmers in the Global South adapt their daily living practices (DLPs) in the face of a number of challenges including globalization and climate change. Lessons from on-the-ground experiences are used to inform purposeful community development and planning strategies. The project ensures a Global South-to-Global South learning exchange as well as capacity-building of policy makers both locally and globally through publications and trainings. Plan-REFUGE is a collaborative effort that includes the Indian states of Kerala and Odisha; the Parish of Clarendon, Jamaica, and the city of Accra, Ghana. This work is supported by the University at Buffalo’s Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity.
About the Global Database for City and Regional Food Policies
The Global Database for City and Regional Food Policies is a resource for local and sub-national governments to learn about food system policies from around the globe. The searchable database provides copies of the legislation, plans, funding allocations, or other public actions authorized or implemented by cities, municipalities, regions, and sub-national governments. This resource allows local and sub-national governments to learn from strategies utilized in other regions or countries. Policymakers and support organizations can search policies using keywords, location, language, population size, and year to find policies that are well suited as inspirations for their own communities. The database is updated regularly.
Use the search tools below to find one or more policies. GENERAL SEARCH by a keyword. Or for a more ADVANCED SEARCH, you can choose from a pre-determined set of terms listed in the drop-down menus. GENERAL SEARCH ADVANCED SEARCH
We recommend using the database in a Chrome browser. For technical assistance or questions regarding database, contact the Food Lab at foodsystems@ap.buffalo.edu. Users may also contact RUAF with policy-specific inquiries or for other resources related to international city and regional food systems at info@ruaf.org. For additional global food systems resources for city and regional governments, please visit the ICLEI-RUAF CITYFOOD Network.
To search for policies within the United States/Canada, please visit the Growing Food Connections policy database.
Submit a Policy
Do you have a local government food-related policy that you would like to showcase for a global audience? We welcome submissions of local and regional government policies for inclusion in the database from across the world. The policy must touch some aspect of the food system and be officially adopted by a sub-national government such as a municipality, district, town, city, region, etc. Policies can be submitted by completing this form.
This database is a work in progress and is updated regularly. Policies included in this database have not been evaluated. Population sizes are drawn from the most recent census reports in the United Nation’s Demographic Yearbook 2015: Population of capital cities and cities of 100,000 or more inhabitants. The database is the intellectual property of the University at Buffalo and RUAF.