An Investigation of Food System Localization Efforts in New York Municipalities: Projects, Practices and Policies

Authors

April Roggio, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFollow
Beomgeun Cho, Singapore National UniversityFollow
Luis Luna-Reyes, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFollow
Jason R. Evans, Johnson and Wales UniversityFollow
Eliot Rich, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFollow
Alexander Buyantuev, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

April Roggio:0000-0002-4640-6183

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2023

Abstract

This document is a component of a research project funded by the New York State Health Foundation from January 2022 to May 2023. The overall project goal was to better understand how we design and sustain resilient local food systems in New York from the perspective of elected officials. The project used three different data collection methods, interviews, a survey and spatial analysis. This document reports on the interview component of the project.

These are the main highlights from the interviews.

• Interviews were conducted primarily between February 2022 and July 2023, and included 38 full length conversations with town supervisors and village mayors.
• Access to local food varies, but food insecurity is generally considered to be an insignificant problem for most localities.
• Local food production in New York State continues to decline. There are fewer small farms, and many town officials consider the loss of small farms an issue of concern.
• Local food systems projects are rarely prioritized. However, as many food systems projects, such as pantries, community gardens and farmers markets are either low cost or have wider community benefits, they have proliferated. And these activities are often highlighted as important opportunities to build social capital.
• Collaboration matters. Having the structural mechanisms to support robust and evolving partnerships and engagement with internal and external collaborators is likely to improve outcomes. When infrastructure to support communication between officials is paired with active and in-person convening, robust partnerships tend to happen, with more measurable outcomes.
• Capacity to address food access and food insecurity is extended by collaboration, but to collaborate often requires some initial capacity. In the case of many rural places in New York State, there is very little initial capacity, which limits the power of collaboration.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Recommended Citation

Roggio, April; Cho, Beomgeun; Luna-Reyes, Luis; Evans, Jason R.; Rich, Eliot; and Buyantuev, Alexander, "An Investigation of Food System Localization Efforts in New York Municipalities: Projects, Practices and Policies" (2023). Public Administration and Policy Faculty Scholarship. 14.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/rockefeller_pad_scholar/14