Food Systems in Crisis

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 4, 2020) – The State University of New York has awarded Rockefeller College Associate Professor Luis F. Luna-Reyes a SUNY research seed grant for his proposal, “Food Systems in Crisis: Dynamic Local Foodsheds as Safety Nets.”

The coronavirus outbreak has uncovered vulnerabilities of current distribution systems, making evident the importance of local supply to the global system. Unfortunately, local systems are most vulnerable in front of a crisis, placing local resilience at a higher risk.

“Our ongoing collaboration has been compiling data, constructing models and designing survey tools for about a year, exploring policies to build resilient food systems that take advantage of and protect the local foodshed,” said Dr. Luna-Reyes. “Seed money will allow us to complete proposals addressing the COVID-19 crisis, specifically aimed at addressing regional provisioning, supply web concerns and small and medium producer scale concerns.”

The three-month grant amounts to $7,500 of research support.