Baltimore Food Systems: A Case Study of Urban Food Environments

4 Credits.

Challenges students to look closely at the environment of Baltimore City's complex food systems, and to consider what it would take to improve these systems to assure access for all to nutritious, adequate, affordable food, ideally with reduced environmental harm. Students "go backstage" with tour guides at sites including a supermarket, a corner store, an emergency food distribution center, and a farm connected to the city school system. Students learn about the types of food available at these sites, who uses them, relevant aspects of their operations, and site-relevant key barriers to, and opportunities for, providing access to healthier and more sustainably produced food. Students also conduct oral history interviews about food with elderly city residents to understand how food access has changed over the years. Class sessions engage students to think critically, and provide background and frameworks for understanding the experiential sessions. Throughout, students consider the relative impacts of access, demand, and stakeholder interests, and consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of voluntary, regulatory (governmental), legal and other strategies. Lectures and discussions consider applicability of lessons gained from the study of Baltimore to other food systems. For their final papers, students identify a problem and its key determinants, and they propose/analyze an option to address it. Students think critically about selected aspects of the city's food systems and food environments, identifying challenges and opportunities for change and incorporating lessons learned from other food systems and programs. Students also discuss implications beyond Baltimore