Ohio State University Extension
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Experience the first-ever National Urban Agriculture Conference on August 4-6, 2024 at Huntington Place Convention Center in Detroit, Michigan.
This will be a national opportunity to celebrate the advancement, investment and dedication to urban agriculture.
A competent urban Extension workforce is critical to extending university research to address today’s complex issues (e.g., affordable housing, poverty, food insecurity, emerging technologies, etc.) in urban areas. However, older models of training the Extension workforce do not always align with current needs. Urban Extension professionals face a different set of challenges than their rural colleagues including large and diverse populations, complex ecosystems of public and private organizations, and navigating the integrated urban-rural interface.
Urban agriculture includes market gardens and small farms within cities that grow crops for sale, but urban agriculture also includes school gardens, community gardens, gardens used to provide nutritious donations for food pantries and also backyard gardens. Urban farms are “small but mighty.” Seventy-six percent of urban farms in Indiana are less than an acre in size, and they contribute significantly to the food system. Still most urban farmers need another source of income besides their farm. This webinar provides details about urban agriculture demographics.
Racism is considered a fundamental cause of health inequities, but research on structural racism and health has been limited by lack of data. Since Mapping Inequality digitized New Deal-era redlining maps from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, there has been an explosion of research examining historic redlining and present-day neighborhood environmental hazards and health. Helen Meier will discuss the application of HOLC maps in population health research and new efforts to characterize historic environmental hazards using the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps.
Adults who continuously played organized sports through their youth have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression than those who never played or those who dropped out, a new study finds. And those who dropped out of sports had poorer mental health than those who never played at all.
The 233 participants at the 2024 Urban Food Systems Symposium represented 26 states and 4 countries. The Symposium was held at the Hyatt Regency Columbus June 11-13.
Over the past 20 years, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been committed to the work of preventing childhood obesity and improving healthy food access for all children and families. There is a new funding opportunity for organizations working toward the same goal. RWJF has an open call for proposals that aim to address structural racism, advance better health for all, and improve health and nutrition outcomes in the communities most impacted by these systemic issues.
On May 2, The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences hosted faculty from Central State University. In attendance were two educators from Central State University who shared about their research, including their collaboration efforts.
Thanks to the generosity of funders, the book Planning for Equitable Urban Agriculture is available for free in digital form from the publisher’s website at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-32076-7.
