Community-Led Food Systems

The aim was to understand the unmet needs and opportunities to support improved information, wisdom, and resource sharing among people growing and producing food in the Chicago region.

The project sought to co-create ways to collect, curate, and steward the use of shared community knowledge and resources based on how people in communities with the greatest food inequities define, generate, and retain value among their communities. To achieve this purpose, we facilitated co-design workshops, which included a range of participants, including growers, food producers, policymakers, advocates, organizers, youth growers, small food business owners, and distributors. The result was the framing of this work as community-led food systems and a grounding of this project's vision and values rooted in the contributions of those with first-hand experience navigating the inequities of the Chicago region food system. Ultimately, the project helped design pathways toward an equitable food system in Chicago led by Black and brown Urban Growers.