Identifying Leverage Points for Food System Transformations

Generating Urban Food Systems Solutions
Generating Urban Food Systems Solutions

Program Contact

Dr. John Reich
jreich@foundationfar.org

Dr. Steven Gray

Michigan State University

Year Awarded  2018

FFAR award amount   $1,000,002

Total award amount   $2,005,803

Location   Flint, MI

Program   Tipping Points

Matching Funders   Community Foundation of Greater Flint, C.S. Molt Foundation, Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Fitness Foundation, Michigan State University

Consolidating Patchwork Approaches to Food Insecurity

Flint, Michigan faces food insecurity and malnutrition crises due to the city’s multi-decade economic downturn. The current food system in Flint is a patchwork of local, state, federal and philanthropic programs all attempting to address the needs of residents from multiple angles. While this approach can be resourcefulness and resilient, little is known about how these many food programs can be brought together to vastly improve outcomes for programs and residents.

The Community Foundation of Greater Flint (CFGF) is collaborating with Michigan State University (MSU) and Flint Fresh to develop a community-based research project that seeks to model food systems in the Flint metro area to reduce inefficiencies and support collective action that results in healthy and affordable food access for all.

These partners are engaging in a series of workshops to better understand how the Flint food system currently functions, major barriers for change and how the food system can be improved for the future. This will allow the researchers to integrate qualitative data on resilience, governance structures and household food security with quantitative data on food system functioning, price and access to develop interactive models that provide a more holistic understanding of the Flint food system.

Why this research is important

Interventions in Flint’s food system have focused on emergency food, but there has been little attention given to improving the underlying structure and function of the food system, particularly for poor and low-income households. This research is developing the knowledge to empower Flint communities and local government.

Communities

  • Empowerment to provide input on community needs and how food system interventions have succeeded or failed in the past
  • Stable food system and effective food and nutrition programs that use resources more efficiently
  • Focused and coordinated interventions that improve access to affordable and nutritious food and promote healthy eating habits

    • Policymakers

  • System-level analytics of the current Flint food system and research reports that identify clear leverage points for change

    • Details About this Research

    Food systems in Flint are constantly in flux and require dynamic modeling techniques to better understand and intervene in the system. This multi-stakeholder approach will use a variety of perspectives to determine a coordinated response to stabilizing the Flint food system.

    Objectives

    The food system in Flint currently exists in a sub-optimal, emergency state. Making changes in the system to achieve a more desirable state will require meeting the following objectives:

    • Identify the factors that maintain the Flint metro food system in its current state
    • Identify the leverage points in the Flint metro food system that can steer the system toward increased access to healthy food; better community health, nutrition and economic outcomes; and programmatic sustainability
    • Identify the barriers and incentives for collective action and sustainable positive outcomes across food programs in the Flint food system
    • Develop plans to use resources more efficiently and strategically to improve social or environmental returns on investment
    • Identify the power brokers and decisionmakers who have the agency, social capital and trust to break the cycles keeping Flint’s food system in its current state
    • Pilot a comprehensive participatory and computational approach to assessing and transforming urban food systems that is transferable to other urban areas
    • Generate creative frameworks and quantitative and qualitative approaches to systematically understand the persistent issues related to the dynamics of urban food systems

    How This Research Contributes to Our Mission

    FFAR supports economically viable production systems in urban and regional agriculture. This research is contributing to understanding the complexities of urban food systems, and which interventions work best in which environments.

    Matching Funders

    Community Foundation of Greater Flint, C.S. Molt Foundation, Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Fitness Foundation, Michigan State University

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    The Latest

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    Breakthroughs

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