Spotlight On

Mission:
Just Food is committed to the vital task of building a just and sustainable food system for the greater New York City region by fostering new food growing, distribution and marketing opportunities that address the environmental, social and economic needs of family farmers, community gardeners, market vendors and low-income urban residents.

Background:
Founded in 1995, Just Food is the only non-profit organization operating in both rural and urban contexts in the greater New York metropolitan area to address the food sovereignty, environmental justice and economic security needs of underprivileged communities, family farmers, community gardeners and market vendors. In both settings, we work in alliance with a host of community-based groups and partner agencies to promote sustainable agriculture, foster new food growing and marketing opportunities, strengthen vulnerable communities, and create new economic and income-earning opportunities.

We frequently receive requests for information, advice and training from colleagues in other organizations in NY and elsewhere, for whom our methods and programs often serve as models.

By using food as the integrating element linking diverse and sometimes disparate interests and individuals, Just Food works to cultivate stronger rural-urban interactions, create new enterprises that increase local economic power, and contribute to community revitalization and self-determination across the New York City and the surrounding region.

In the city, Just Food tackles deficiencies in food access and security in some of New York’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods by increasing the production, marketing and distribution of fresh, wholesome food from community gardens and urban agriculture sites, on the one hand, and promoting Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives, on the other. Our aim is to turn “food deserts” (i.e., neighborhoods underserved by other food retailers) into “islands of sustainability.”

In the countryside, Just Food is working to address the rapid decline of family farms in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut by linking small and medium-scale producers to new markets, and encouraging them to diversify their farm management strategies and adopt more sustainable agricultural practices.

In both town and country, we provide tailored training and technical advice, leadership development, and networking opportunities to strengthen our local partners’ capacity to grow, market, distribute and consume more fresh, nutritious, locally-grown food.

It is important to emphasize that Just Food is not in the business of running our own farms, CSAs, community gardens, farmers’ markets or urban farm stands. Instead, our farm and food-focused programs, combined with our unique training and capacity strengthening efforts, help rural and urban farmers, underserved NYC communities and their local organizations to gain greater control over their own productive resources, create fair-trade arrangements through direct marketing relationships that work for producers and consumers, and become more independent and self-reliant. We believe this emphasis on autonomy and self-sufficiency is crucial if these community-based efforts are to be sustainable over the long term and lead to positive and lasting social and environmental change.

Just Food’s innovative approach has produced impressive and lasting results across New York’s five boroughs and the wider region over the past decade. Looking to the future, we believe that if we succeed at establishing a just, resilient, sustainable food system here in America’s largest, most dynamic and arguably most complex city, we can have an enormous influence on the emergence and spread of similar systems in other towns and cities across the country.

Funding Needs:
With some 1.6 million people living at or below the poverty line in NYC, many of whom have no access to fresh, safe, locally-grown food, and with many of the region's family farms under threat from urban encroachment and rural decline, we know the task we face is considerable. We require new funding to significantly increase the number of sustainable food and farming initiatives we support and redouble our training, education and outreach work across the wider region.

Every month, the "Spotlight On" highlights the activities of a different 501(c)3 nonprofit organization located in the tri-state region (NY, NJ, or CT). The selection of organizations for the "Spotlight On" is based on criteria such as programmatic interests, geographic focus, and size, to ensure the broadest possible representation of the region's nonprofit sector.

If you'd like to see your NPO in the "Spotlight," please use this submission form to send us a profile of your organization. Or e-mail a description of your organization, following the above format, to nyweb@foundationcenter.org, with "Spotlight Submission" in the subject line.