The Community, Food, and Agriculture Program (CFAP) at Cornell University is a nationally recognized research, teaching and extension program dedicated to strengthening communities and supporting local agriculture.

CFAP partners with many different kinds of people, farms and communities to help them develop community-based strategies to improve the viability of farming and support a strong regionalized food system. These strategies include developing new markets for farm products; creating value-added processing opportunities; educating communities about agriculture; organizing “buy local” and regional identity campaigns; producer cooperation strategies; producer-consumer alliances; and much more.

CFAP’s applied research program provides critical support for rebuilding the connections between farms, food and communities. Recent research projects have explored the non-economic impacts of agriculture on NY communities; the role of farmers markets in rural economic development; keys to success for small-scale growers’ cooperatives; impacts of structural change in the dairy industry; and innovative marketing tools for farmers and agribusinesses.

HOW CAN CFAP SUPPORT YOU, YOUR LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM, AND YOUR COMMUNITY?

• Networking: a great place to find out who’s doing what, where, with community-based food systems

• Workshops: CFAP staff host and are frequent presenters at conferences, workshops and meetings, sharing the latest on agriculture development.

• Join the CFAP email listserv for agriculture development news, networking, events, and more.

• Visit the CFAP web site at www.CFAP.org and check out the NYS Ag Economic & Community Development Information Clearinghouse website www.nyagdev.net, maintained by CFAP and originally funded by the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets.

For more information about the resources available at CFAP, call 607-255-9832, email gcg4@cornell.edu, or visit the CFAP web site at www.CFAP.org.