One in 10 adults in the Bay Area struggle to consistently find three meals a day. More than half of all adults are overweight or obese. And residents in many of the region’s communities live in neighborhoods where fast food restaurants and convenience stores abound, while grocery stores are scarce or don’t exist at all. 

 This report highlights key recommendations for how communities can work together to make sure that everyone, regardless of income or race, has access to healthy food, and  discusses the unequal access to healthy foods that exists in communities of color and for low-income communities in San José.Food access is important to the health and well-being of all of our families.

For the Tohono O'odham Tribe in southwestern and central Arizona, food is the foundation of health, culture, community, family, and economies. Since 1996, the grassroots community organization Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) has been dedicated to improving the health, cultural vitality, sustainability, and economic revitalization for the Tohono O’odham Nation.

This fall, thanks to TOCA’s new school food enterprise, Desert Rain Food Services, 700 children on the Tohono O'odham Nation will be served healthier school food sourced from local farmers. TOCA received a $300,000 Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) grant to pilot a school food service enterprise that supports healthier eating and a strong indigenous food economy.

Food Policy Councils are a great way for food system stakeholders of all types – from farmers to government employees, non-profit leaders to active citizens – to engage in policymaking that directly affects them. Each entry in this directory includes contact information, links to webpages and social media sites, governance structures, top priorities, and notable accomplishments for the respective FPC.

Illustrates the connection between improved healthy food access and resulting economic and community development, encouraging readers to include assessment of economic outcomes in their healthy food access research agenda, and provides evidence to support decision makers in advancing healthy food policies.

This report shares how our Double Up Food Bucks program grew from a small pilot in Detroit to a statewide success story that supported more than 200,000 low-income families and more than 1,000 farmers in 2013 alone, and has had a greater than $5 million effect on Michigan’s economy.

 Learn how you can develop an equitable food hub in your own community.  This webinar highlights how food hub operations are creating a more equitable and inclusive food system and discuss lessons learned and strategies for success.

Mandela MarketPlace grew out of grassroots community organizing efforts to shift resource dynamics, giving residents access to healthy food retail and neighborhood development funding. Incorporated in 2004, Mandela MarketPlace is a nonprofit organization that currently works in partnership with local farmers, local residents, and community-based businesses to build health, wealth, and assets through cooperative food enterprises.

Read this in-depth case study and accompanying photo essay for more information.