SDG 2: Zero Hunger

Promoting sustainable agriculture and better nutrition while achieving food security and ending hunger.

The world produces enough food to feed everyone on this planet, so why are a quarter of people food insecure? Building sustainable, resilient food systems is a holistic way of combating many problems on our planet. About 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food production. Agriculture is at the whim of our changing climate. Obesity and chronic illnesses are on the rise due to diet.

Take a Deep Dive on SDG 2

Check out the resources collected below that lifts up the importance of combating hunger from faculty, staff and guest lectures here at UB.

Planning for Community Food Systems in the Global South

Listen to a five part webinar series on Planning for Community Food Systems in the Global South. (UBuffalo school of Architecture and Planning, 5/3/2019)

The Hidden Impacts of Partnership & Co-Production in Food Systems Planning Scholarship and Action

Allison DeHonney, President and CEO, Urban Fruits and Veggies and Yeeli Mui, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health discuss the importance of community partnerships in scholarship and action. (UB Community for Global Health Equity, 1/13/2021)

Urban Food Systems For Better Diets and Nutrition in the Global South

Marie Ruel, Director of IFPRI's Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division discusses the food system in the Global South. (UB Community for Global Health Equity, 2/5/2020)

Malls, Markets, and Malnutrition: Food In/Sensitive Planning in African Cities | Jane Battersby

Food security and urban systems governance are not widely acknowledged as falling within local government mandates in African cities. However, urban policies and planning profoundly shape urban food systems and the urban conditions that drive food insecurity and malnutrition. The state’s engagement with the food system is informed by historical policy and planning legacies overlaid with decontextualized imported ideals from the global north. This lecture presents findings from research conducted in South Africa, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe to frame the impacts of existing planning on food security, but also the potential for more food sensitive planning to emerge. (UB School of Architecture and Planning 4/25/2019)

Massachusetts Avenue Project: Growing Youth Leaders to Build a Food Movement - Picard, 2014

Did you know that the City of Buffalo is recognized as the 3rd poorest city in the nation? During this seminar regarding the Massachusetts Avenue Project, ideas to improve these diverse areas of the city are presented, with hopes to fix both the employment and poverty rate within the area. On top of fixing those key aspects, promoting a healthy and nutritious lifestyle is also encouraged. Some of the featured health-improving initiatives include aquaponics greenhouses, a growing green mobile market, and the overall importance of cooking and nutrition education. Watch this insightful seminar to understand and see what you, yourself can do to help out with this cause. (UB School of Public Health 2/24/2014)

Seeding Resilience

Seeding Resilience is a community-led coalition that’s seeking to strengthen the local food system in response to COVID-19. It was formed in response to the increase food insecurity and hunger across the U.S. as unemployment rises, schools close, and the pandemic and related emergency measures make it more difficult for many people to obtain food.

Learn more about Seeding Resilience

CAMPUS NEWS 10 in 10 Design Challenge asks students to think big about carbon neutrality
8/5/21
A plan to offset carbon emissions by converting brownfields to fields of bamboo. An “ecoscaping” initiative that would encourage even the busiest of people to grow food in their backyard by using ready-to-install garden beds.
New UB website aims to help reverse health inequities in Buffalo
4/21/21
Addressing health inequities in Buffalo will require research into innovative solutions that grapple with a wide range of issues, including gentrification, the physical environment, food deserts, transportation issues, criminal justice, housing, education and employment.
Table food pantry launches annual food drive
11/19/21
UB’s Blue Table, the online campus food pantry offering students healthy food options, marks this Thanksgiving season by putting out a widespread and heartfelt call for donations.
Herbs, sunflowers and three sisters rise in South Campus garden
8/31/21
If you have indigestion, stress, headache or inflammation, you might want to head over to the southwest corner of Cary Hall on the South Campus. There, at a new garden, you can take in the aroma of herbs believed to help with those ailments (respectively, lemon verbena, lavender, mint and tarragon).
UB’s latest Boren winner brings diversity to food security and national security
5/21/21
A child of African immigrants whose years of homelessness strengthened her resolve to succeed is UB’s latest recipient of a Boren Scholarship, a prestigious international award that sponsors U.S. undergraduates to study abroad in areas of the world critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad programs.
UB expert: The term 'food desert' slows solutions to neighborhood nutritional woes
10/22/21
Samina Raja helped popularize the term “food deserts” more than a decade ago but has been on a mission in recent years to jettison the term, which she considers inaccurate.
Students jar honey for UB Bees donation to UB Blue Table
10/13/21
About 20 students joined David Hoekstra, clinical assistant professor and UB Bees director, for a honey-jarring event on Sept. 30 in the Student Union. The honey comes from UB’s own backyard, from hives located between Crofts Hall and Bizer Creek on the North Campus.

Sustainable Courses

URP 604: Food Systems Planning

EVS 327 Sustainable Food and Agriculture
SOC 352: Consumption and Sustainability
SOC 358: Sociology of Food

ES 102: Fundamentals of Wellness