Community food assessment - A first step in planning for community food security

Community food assessments (CFAs) constitute a first step in planning for community food security. Community food security is a situation in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet, through a sustainable food system that also maximizes community self-reliance and social justice. Though a study of nine CFAs, this article discusses their common threads to planning, how a planning approach might strengthen CFAs, and what planners might learn from their. Four CFAs led by professionals with planning backgrounds employed spatial mapping techniques to analyze a variety of issues, explored more and diverse community food linkages, used multiple sources and methods, envisioned a key role for community planning agencies, distributed their findings widely to a local and national audience of professional planners, and helped place planners in leadership positions of the national community food security movement. Implications of this study for planning education, research, and practice are discussed.