Making the Case for Regional Food Systems | NESAWG

Please join us on January 26th at 1 pm EST for a webinar that will share highlights from our new report (the full report can be found below)!

Register here! 

Although the term “regional food system” is used more frequently these days, regional food systems are inadequately understood and valued. A Regional Imperative: Making the Case for Regional Food Systems, a new NESAWG report by Kathy Ruhf and Kate Clancy, takes a comprehensive look at regional food systems and makes a compelling case for their importance in food systems change work. Clancy and Ruhf are not new to this topic. This report greatly expands on their 2010 NESAWG working paper, It Takes a Region. As two of NESAWG’s founders, they have championed regionalism and regional food systems as core to NESAWG’s work for over three decades.  

The webinar on January 26, 2022 will present the key concepts of the report, along with examples from the field. Ruhf and Clancy will distill the material into digestible “take-aways” for food system practitioners, educators, policymakers, researchers and advocates. 

This new report explores the concepts, practices, challenges and promise of regional food systems. It focuses on the Northeast U.S., a laboratory of regional food systems thinking and action, but it also describes regional food systems development across the country. The report contains dozens of examples of region-scale endeavors. 

Clancy and Ruhf argue that “local” and “regional” are different and that both are essential. In confusing or conflating the terms, both lose their power and potential to achieve real change. They make the case for “thinking regionally;” that geography and scale are foundational considerations for food systems change. The report posits six regional food system dimensions and nine attributes, with resilience, diversity and sustainability as overarching themes. It lifts up issue areas that were not sufficiently addressed in the earlier paper. These include climate change, race, equity and social justice, economic development, and supply chain infrastructures. It looks at the contributions of urban agriculture, fisheries and trade, among many other aspects of regional food system development. 

Over the three years writing the report, Ruhf and Clancy were heartened to discover more and more research on regional food systems, and new examples of “regional thinking” in the field. Eight chapters take a wide perspective on regional food systems, from production capacity to federal grant programs to supply chain business models; from land access to food security to procurement. They also focus in on governance and public engagement. One chapter explores the challenges and constraints to developing regional food systems, and another suggests what is needed to move toward more resilient regional food systems. 

The report is a project of NESAWG, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the John Merck Fund, the Lawson Valentine Foundation, and the Merck Family Fund. It will be posted on the NESAWG website. For more information about the report or the webinar, contact Kathy Ruhf at [email protected]. 

MAKING THE CASE FOR REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEMS
BY KATHY RUHF AND KATE CLANCY

Regional food system’ appears with increasing frequency in scholarly works and among food system practitioners. Yet regional food systems are understudied and undervalued. Much more attention to regionalism and regional food systems is necessary to create more sustainable, equitable, and resilient foodsystems for all. Building from the authors’ 2010 paper, “It takes a region… Exploring a regional food systems approach: A working paper,” this greatly expanded report explores the concepts, practices, challenges, and promise of regional food systems. The report’s focus is
on the Northeast U.S., a laboratory for regional food systems thinking and action, but it also describes and gives examples of regional food systems development across the country. The arguments in favor of regional approaches and explorations apply to all regions and embracing them could not be more imperative to address contemporary conditions.

You can read the Executive Summary here

Read the full report 

[Figure created by Michael Milli and Raychel Santo, from Palmer et al. (2017). Between Global and Local: Exploring Regional Food Systems from the Perspectives of Four Communities in the U.S. Northeast. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 7(4), 187–205.]