Like air, water, and shelter, food is essential for life. Food plays a central role in our health, customs, heritage and culture. A healthy, sustainable food system is…

• Place-based, ecologically sound, economically balanced, resilient, socially cohesive, transparent, and secure.
• Emphasizes, strengthens, and makes visible the relationships between urban and rural environments, and among food producers, processors, distributors and consumers of food at the local and regional levels.
• Considers the multiple connections with other urban systems, as well as the intended and unintended consequences of policy and programmatic decisions.

Cultivating Healthy Places specializes in food systems planning, but also sector specific work. For more information about our work, explore the following links:

• Food Access
• Food Production
• Food Systems Planning