Growing Food Connections is a national project seeking to enhance community food security while ensuring sustainable and economically viable agriculture and food production in the United States. The project integrates research, education, and planning and policy activities across urban and rural communities in all regions of the country. Specifically, the project aims to build the capacity of local governments to create, implement, and sustain food system plans and policies that simultaneously promote access to healthy, affordable, and culturally acceptable food and foster a viable agricultural sector in their communities. Growing Food Connections is funded by a five-year grant from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The national team includes representatives of American Farmland Trust, American Planning Association, Cultivating Healthy Places, The Ohio State University, and University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.