Solutions for Food Security: Urban Food Hubs

This event is presented by Resources for the Future with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History as part of an ongoing series, Anthropocene: Life in the Age of Humans.

The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and Resources for the Future invite you to join Sabine O’Hara, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) and Landgrant Programs of the University of the District of Columbia, as she explores the question: can cities contribute to food security and nutritional security?

To answer this question, O’Hara is looking vertically, as well as horizontally, for farming solutions that generate high yields from small urban spaces. Rather than growing in size, these urban food security solutions grow in number, and re-envision our food system as a network of decentralized, small scale, highly productive food hubs even in the midst of urban neighborhoods. These Urban Food Hubs consist of four integrated components that address the whole value chain of food: food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste and water recovery. 

O’Hara will review four emerging Urban Food Hub locations in Washington, DC, and explore the connections between urban farming, food security, nutritional security, and the sustainability and resilience of our cities.

See more programs in this series: Anthropocene: Life in the Age of Humans.