Guides to Policy

Community Tool Box: “The Community Tool Box was created to help people build healthier communities and bring about the changes they envision. We provide educational modules and tools to help people work together to make their communities what they dream they can be. Although the Community Tool Box has thousands of pages of resources, its design makes it easy to find what you want.”

Growing Food Connections: The overarching goal of this partnership is to enhance community food security while ensuring sustainable and economically viable agriculture and food production. This requires building the capacity of local governments to remove public policy barriers and deploy innovative public policy tools.

Healthy Food Access Portal:  Contains resources to help with the planning and implementation of policies and programs aimed at helping low income and minority populations’ access healthy food.

Healthy Food Policy Project:  The Healthy Food Policy Project (HFPP) identifies and elevates local laws that seek to promote access to healthy food, and also contribute to strong local economies, an improved environment, and health equity, with a focus on socially disadvantaged and marginalized groups. This website can help healthy food advocates, local policy makers, and local public health

Roadmap for City Food Sector Innovation and Investment: “Roadmap for City Food Sector Innovation and Investment,” the report demonstrates how cities can develop a sound local food investment strategy and how to select the best investment opportunities. It also includes a selection of municipal policies and initiatives to support local food entrepreneurs and businesses.”

Buffalo Green Code

Erie County Board of Health 

Erie County Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board 

Southern Tier West

One Region Forward Growing Together: Commissioned as a technical report for a regional sustainability planning process known locally as One Region Forward, Growing Together is a sustainable food access and food justice report for the Buffalo-Erie metropolitan area of Western New York State. One Region Forward planning process was led by the University at Buffalo Regional Institute (UBRI) and funded by a grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Partnership for Sustainable Communities Initiative.

Erie County Department of Environmental Health: For any questions about food service permits, regulations surrounding food safety, food trucks, or food complaints.

New York State Council on Hunger and Food Policy

NYS Department of Health: Food Safety and Questions: For any questions on food safety and food service, regulations surrounding food safety, or food permits.

NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets: For any questions on food processing, home processing, serving at farmer's markets, or food packaging. 

Food Policy Networks:  Support the development of effective and robust food policy at the state and local levels by working with existing food policy councils, national organizations and other interested groups.