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.
The project examines the ways in which Burmese-American residents acquire healthy, affordable, and culturally acceptable foods in the city of Buffalo. In particular, the project focus on examining how Burmese-Americans adapt their food acquisition practices in their new country, how they perceive health risks tied to these practices, and how their food acquisition practices may change their food environment.
Coordinator: Alex Judelsohn
Faculty team: Samina Raja (School of Architecture and Planning), Heather Orom (School of Public Health and Health Professions), Isok Kim (School of Social Work, Roberto Diaz Del Carpio (School of Medicine)
Sponsor: UB Community for Global Health Equity
The Buffalo Neighborhood Food Project builds on the past successes of Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo (GGB) and the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) in improving local food systems in the City of Buffalo. In the Buffalo Neighborhood Food Project, these organizations are partnering to achieve four goals:
1) To meet the food needs of low income youth and families in Buffalo
2) To advocate for policy in support of food systems development
3) To increase the self-reliance of our community in providing for our own food needs
4) To create a comprehensive and replicable school garden program
The Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab is partnering with these two organizations to evaluate the programs each organization has implemented to meet these four goals. This involves data collection on food cultivation outcomes at GGB’s 76 community gardens and five school gardens in the City of Buffalo, and at MAP’s urban farm on Buffalo’s West Side.
This project is funded through a competitive grant awarded to GGB and MAP by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture.
Project Lead: Jenny Whittaker
Safe Routes to Schools programs seek to foster improvements that facilitate active commuting in five thematic areas: education, encouragement, engineering, enforcement, and evaluation. The Town of Amherst, New York is the lead sponsor of a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program that builds off a successful 2008 SRTS program in the Williamsville Central School District. This project, funded through the United States Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, facilitates infrastructure and non-infrastructure improvements to increase active commuting to schools in the Amherst Central and Sweet Home Central school districts.
The Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab is actively involved in the education, encouragement, and evaluation components of this program in the Sweet Home Central School District and the Amherst Central School District through events such as Walk to School Day and other active commuting events. The Town of Amherst Engineering Department is our partner in engineering, and the Town of Amherst Police Department is our partner in enforcement.
Team Members: Samina Raja, Sora Baek, Bumjoon Kang, Jeanne Leccese, Elizabeth Machnica
Resources
The Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab has developed a number of resources in partnership with the Sweet Home Central School District and the Town of Amherst. These resources include maps for each district elementary school that indicate safe walking and bicycling routes to school and infographics with useful information and facts about walking and bicycling for parents, students and school administrators. In addition, we have published the results of a survey of parents from the Sweet Home Central School District. These resources can be found below.
Growing Together is a sustainable food access and food justice report for Erie and Niagara Counties, located in Western New York State. Through research and stakeholder engagement, the Food Lab is identifying assets and opportunities within the region’s food system. In partnership with the University at Buffalo Regional Institute, the Food Lab aims to craft tools that the bi-counties’ many municipalities can use to strengthen: the viability of food production; access to nutritious, culturally acceptable, and affordable food; and the linkages between food producers and eaters within their communities and the region.
Growing Together is one of five components of the bi-counties’ One Region Forward sustainability plan, which is funded by $2 million from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Partnership for Sustainable Communities Initiative. One Region Forward focuses on planning sustainably for food access and justice; land use and development; transportation and mobility; housing and neighborhoods; and climate change. The project is currently in the second year of HUD’s three-year planning grant.
Team members: Jessica Hall (Project Manager), Cristina Delgado, Travis Norton.
Epstein, Leonard H., Elizabeth Handley, Kelly K. Dearing, Davi,d D. Cho; James Roemmich, Rocco Paluch, Samina Raja, Youngju Pak, and Bonnie Spring. 2006a. “Purchases of food in youth: Influence of price and income.” Psychological Science 17(1): 82-89
Raja, Samina. 2006. “Seeking common ground in smart growth and food system planning: Lessons from the Food for Growth studio” in “Teaching Smart Growth at Colleges and Universities: A Set of Model Course Prospectuses.” US Environmental Planning Agency (Electronic publication.)
Epstein, L., Samina Raja, Sam Gold, Rocky Paluch, and James Roemmich. 2006. “Reducing sedentary behavior: The relationship between park area and the physical activity of youth.” Psychological Science. Aug 2006, 17(8):654-659
Roemmich, James, Leonard Epstein, Samina Raja, Li Yin, Jodie Robinson, and Dana Winiewicz. 2006. “Association of access to parks and recreational facilities with the physical activity of young children.” Preventive Medicine. (43) 6: 437-441
Roemmich, James, Leonard Epstein, Samina Raja, and Li Yin. 2007. “The neighborhood and home environments: Disparate relationships with physical activity and sedentary behaviors in youth.” Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 33(1): 29-38