Cultivating Resilience in Virginia’s Food Systems Initiative
From hurricanes and droughts to public health emergencies, supply chain disruptions, and policy changes, unexpected events can affect every part of Virginia's food systems. These disruptions and shocks influence how food moves from fields and waters to our tables while impacting the livelihoods of farmers, workers, food businesses, and communities. Through the Cultivating Resilience in Virginia's Food Systems Initiative, the Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation is working with partners across the Commonwealth to strengthen food systems resilience through community engaged research, science-policy, planning, and action.
Based on research and stakeholder input across this initiative, we define a resilient food system as one that:
Ensures consistent access to affordable, appropriate, and nutritious food.
Supports thriving farmers, workers, food businesses, and communities.
Prepares for, responds to, recovers from, and adapts to challenges such as economic changes, policy decisions, and environmental hazards and climatic changes.
Because food systems are complex, the ability to adapt to these challenges requires intentional planning and collaboration. By bringing together farmers, researchers, food system and community organizations, Extension, policymakers, funders, and artists, this initiative helps connect community priorities and research to policy and practice.
The projects below represent different but connected efforts designed to support dialogue, learning, planning, and action to help cultivate more resilient food systems across the Commonwealth and beyond. We invite you to explore each project and learn more about how we, alongside many partners, are working together to build food systems resilience.
Explore our projects and events: