City Harvest Programs » Healthy Neighborhoods
Community Food Assessments
A Community Food Assessment (CFA) documents the reality of available food and nutrition knowledge in a specific neighborhood. City Harvest works with residents to learn more about the community’s perceptions and experiences of food, health, nutrition, and hunger. A CFA identifies obstacles to eating well and makes recommendations on sustainable solutions to overcome them.
"When we attempt to make these food changes in our homes…it is not enough to tell our children, ‘Let us eat vegetables in our daily food intake.’ But when the time to eat arrives, we eat too much meat, too much rice because it is more cheaper, too many beans, but there are not any salads or vegetables. It is normal that when you serve a plate of food, it should be more than half of vegetables, being boiled or raw. If we practice that form of eating, our children will get used to this form of life."
– CFA focus group participant
Resources
• Download a copy of the Bed-Stuy CFA, Mount Hope CFA, Melrose CFA or Staten Island CFA.
• The Community Food Security Coalition has resources explaining strategy and approach behind Community Food Assessments.
