Planners Coming to the Table

Duncan Hilchey

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2011.021.024

Abstract

Planners Coming to the Table

Highlights

“Planners Coming to the Table,” we focus on how the planning community has come in recent years to embrace food systems as a legitimate focus of their profession
This is a watershed event, since planners are trained to provide systematic analyses and process skills to opportunities and challenges faced by communities — things all too often lacking in agriculture and food system work
While food system planners are really just at the beginning of this exciting period of growth, they have added their shoulders to the wheel, and as a result we will see an accelerated pace in the movement to create more equitable and sustainable food systems

Summary

Introduction

“Planners Coming to the Table,” we focus on how the planning community has come in recent years to embrace food systems as a legitimate focus of their profession. This is a watershed event, since planners are trained to provide systematic analyses and process skills to opportunities and challenges faced by communities — things all too often lacking in agriculture and food system work. The American Planning Association has adopted a “Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning,” planning students are pressing their departments to offer food system planning courses, and Cornell and many other planning programs around North America have begun to accommodate them: hiring faculty with food systems expertise, developing new courses, PhD programs, research groups, and the like (e.g., efforts at the University of Buffalo and the University of Wisconsin).

Results

Conclusion