Category Archives: Feature

UB’s Food Lab partners with prominent Kashmiri poet Zareef Ahmad Zareef to celebrate an important Indigenous green called haak

Zareef Ahmad Zareef
Zareef Ahmad Zareef, noted Kashmiri poet and environmentalist. Photo courtesy of Owais Zareef.

As highly processed foods make their way into Himalayan region of Kashmir, researchers at the University at Buffalo have taken a creative approach to raise awareness of haak (hāk), an important Indigenous green in the region that has been around for centuries. They’ve partnered with noted Kashmiri poet Zareef Ahmad Zareef as part of a public health campaign being shared in the region.

Food systems are increasingly recognized as a lever for promoting public health. Yet, the potential of Indigenous and community-based food systems for public health is often overlooked. Indigenous food systems are all the material and non-material relationships and resources — including the land, air, water, soil, and culturally important plant, animal, and fungi species — that have sustained Indigenous peoples over millennia.

The University at Buffalo Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab (UB Food Lab) is working with partners at the Sher-i-Kashmir Agricultural University of Science and Technology (SKUAST-Kashmir) to document, preserve and plan for stronger Indigenous and community-based food systems. In particular, the UB Food Lab — housed within UB’s School of Architecture and Planning — is focused on documenting and preserving ways to protect haak, a type of kale (brassica oleracea var. varidis) that has been grown in Kashmir and sustained the population.  Research partners at SKUAST-Kashmir, led by Khalid Masoodi, point to preliminary in-vitro results that suggest that haak may offer protections against particular diseases (kale contains polyphenols, carotenoids, glucosinolates’ hydrolysis products and vitamins C and E that show antioxidant activity). An affordable, nutritious and culturally celebrated green, haak has served as a nutritional safety net during times of conflict in the region, a fact documented by Food Lab team including Samina Raja, Alex Judelsohn, Athar Parvaiz and others in the Journal of the American Planning Association (Raja et al, 2023).

Despite its cultural importance and public health potential, haak is competing with the arrival of (less healthy) hyper-processed foods via globalized food chains in Kashmir. Indeed, preliminary data from the research team suggests that the frequency of consumption of haak among younger generations is lower than that among older generations — a trend that the interdisciplinary team aims to counter with a new public education campaign that draws on the power of poetry.

Commissioned by the UB Food Lab, a new poem, titled “Haake Naame,” or “An Ode to Haak” by Zareef Ahmad Zareef draws attention to the historical and cultural significance of haak. An award-winning writer, poet and environmentalist, Zareef has a significant following among Kashmiris, including tens of thousands of followers on social media. Although he has composed widely on Kashmir’s history and culture, Zareef notes that he has not written about haak. Two years ago, conversations with the UB Food Lab team  inspired him to write about haak. Says Raja: “I am grateful for Mr. Zareef’s unmatched creativity and understanding of Kashmiri foodways. His poem will draw Kashmiris’ attention to the public health potential of haak in ways that a scientific journal article cannot. Art and science have to collectively work to promote health and food equity.”

Written and recited in the Kashmiri language for a Kashmiri audience, “Haake Naame” draws attention to haak’s centrality to Kashmiri life and well-being. Watch and share. 

Growing Toward Equity: Equitable Urban Agriculture in Buffalo’s East Side Neighborhoods

Urban agriculture, though often viewed as a modern trend, holds a long history of survival and resistance for marginalized communities across the United States. A new report, Growing Toward Equity, draws specifically on the histories and practices of Black growers in an effort to promote equitable urban agriculture in Buffalo’s East Side neighborhoods. The report outlines 21 policy and planning strategies for the protection and expansion of urban agriculture, including ideas drawn directly from conversations with community members.

Read the full report here.

Faithwin Gbadamos

Faithwin Gbadamos is a PhD student in the Department of Geography. Her research is centered on the nexus of sustainability, health, and development. Her research seeks to answer questions about environmental degradation linked to food security, livelihood impacts, and adaptation strategies. She uses the power of geospatial analysis to gain insights into the relationship between spatial dynamics and social factors. At the Food lab, Faithwin is responsible for tasks involving geographic information.

Prior to starting her PhD, Faithwin explored diverse sectors, including energy and telecommunications, providing her with firsthand insights into these sectors and the critical need for sustainable practices. This experience solidified her unwavering commitment to environmental sustainability and health. Faithwin graduated from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria with a bachelor’s degree in Geography.

Growing Food Connections Local Government Policy Database 

The Growing Food Connections Local Government Policy Database is a searchable collection of local public policies that explicitly support community food systems. This database provides policymakers, government staff, and others interested in food policy with concrete examples of local public policies that have been adopted to address a range of food systems issues: rural and urban food production, farmland protection, transfer of development rights, food aggregation and distribution infrastructure, local food purchasing and procurement, healthy food access, food policy councils, food policy coordination, food system metrics, tax reductions and exemptions for food infrastructure, and much more.

Local Government Food Policy Database

Local Government Food Policy Database: 

Growing Food Connections

The Growing Food Connections Local Government Policy Database is a searchable collection of local public policies that explicitly support community food systems. This database provides policymakers, government staff, and others interested in food policy with concrete examples of local public policies that have been adopted to address a range of food systems issues: rural and urban food production, farmland protection, transfer of development rights, food aggregation and distribution infrastructure, local food purchasing and procurement, healthy food access, food policy councils, food policy coordination, food system metrics, tax reductions and exemptions for food infrastructure, and much more.

Local Public Policy

The Growing Food Connections team defines local public policy as: a course of municipal, county or regional government action in response to public problems or issues.

Policy Types

This database includes a range of policies such as local laws, ordinances, resolutions, motions, orders, and directives, as well as plans, standards, guidelines, tax exemptions and other public financing policies. Policies span different geographic regions, sizes of government, rural and urban contexts, and public issues. In addition to general information about policy type, topic and adoption date, the database includes policy documents, or the adopted policy language for each policy. When available, this database also lists information about the adopting, implementing, and supporting public agencies and non-governmental organizations; funding amount and sources; and policy outcomes – initiatives, programs, projects and other actions enabled, established or supported by the policy.

Submit A Policy From Your Community

Help your community be recognized! If your community has adopted a local or regional government policy that impacts the food system, submit it for inclusion in the database. We are only able to include policies that have been officially adopted by a local government (municipality or county) in the United States.

Policies can be submitted by completing this form.

What about food systems plans and policies adopted outside of the United States?

If you are interested in sub-national policies that are being adopted outside of the United States, please visit this Global Database hosted by the University at Buffalo and RUAF Foundation.

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 This database is continually updated. Policies included in this database have not been evaluated. Population categories are based on USDA’s Rural-Urban Continuum Codes.  The database is the intellectual property of the University at Buffalo and partners. 

Local Government Food Policy Database

What do people need to know before they can transform municipal food policies?

New research by UB Food Lab member Carol E Ramos-Gerena in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2023.122.008

INTRODUCTION

Food policies should be informed by those who they intend to serve, but policy-making processes remain exclusive to privileged voices, knowledge, and experiences. This article bridges food and policy scholarship with the critical literacy work of Paulo Freire to answer: how do we understand literacies tied to food policy? What does (or, what could) it mean to be food policy literate? In a new JAFSCD article, Carol E. Ramos-Gerena proposes five principles for conceptualizing critical food policy literacy that support food system transformations. 

KEY FINDINGS

The paper suggests that efforts to promote critical food policy literacy must facilitate communities to (a) “read the world,” (b) “read the word,” (c) be critically aware of food policy processes and systems, (d) learn contextually and through authentic practice, and (e) enable people to negotiate and transform the world (their context) collectively. 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH

Possessing knowledge on engaging with food policy processes is not commensurate with actual engagement. Thus, structural barriers to community participation must also be addressed. Food system planners and educators, particularly at the municipal level, should support locally-based citizen food organizations to engage in food policy. This support must go beyond assessing communities’ food policy literacy. Instead, it must intend to bridge the gap to ensure critical readiness for food policy engagement. 

For questions and suggestions, contact us at foodsystems@ap.buffalo.edu.

Lanika Sanders

Lanika recently received her master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University at Buffalo. Her interests—which lie at the junction of sustainable agriculture and food equity—grew throughout her time at St. Lawrence University, where she interned on small-scale farms and with local food equity nonprofits before graduating with a Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies and Sociology. She then spent two service years working to address food inequities in the U.S., investigating and employing urban agriculture as a means of building community resilience. This work sparked Lanika’s interest in food policy, reaffirming her interest in designing healthier, more equitable cities, and inspiring her to pursue a specialization in Food Systems and Community Health during her time at UB.

Daniela Leon

Daniela Leon is currently a first-year Master of Urban Planning student at the University at Buffalo, and a graduate of UB’s Environmental Design program. She is interested in the role of economic development as a lever for positive change in urban communities. Her experiences as research assistant at the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab have fostered her passion for equity and social justice among people of color and other marginalized communities in cities. Her research has focused on identifying opportunities for the integration of informal markets to the urban milieu, specifically street vending. While Buffalo has been home for many years now, she hopes to someday return to the New York City area and contribute to the innovative strategies that advance local economies and small businesses.