Community Science
In 2025, Valley Verde launched multiple projects that rely on community science to ensure community food-related needs are heard and understood. As part of these projects, community members are engaging with scientists to prioritize research topics, collect and analyze data, and write research reports that advance our community's priorities.
Community Needs Assessment
​There is a need to gain a deeper understanding of the growing short- and long-term food-related needs in the county, as well as of the Bay Area's ecosystem of services aiming to address such needs.
To gain this deeper understanding, Valley Verde is conducting a needs assessment that, through surveys, interviews, and focus groups, provides SCC residents with the opportunity to have their voices heard about their community's food-related needs and about how they would prefer local nonprofits address them.​​​
Food System Transformation
There is a need to to gain a deeper understanding of the multiple sustainable and unsustainable trends that are shaping our food system's development. Sustainable trends push our food system toward access for all to nutritious and affordable food, while minimizing environmental impact. Unsustainable trends push our food system toward environmental degradation, low-nutrition diets, and social inequalities.​
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To gain this deeper understanding, Valley Verde is conducting research aimed at identifying the trends shaping our food system.
Valley Verde plans to share the research results widely with interested community members and academic, nonprofit, and government organizations, and apply them in identifying new and strengthening existing collaborative efforts to comprehensively address the county's short- and long-term food-related needs.
Would you like to participate in assessing community needs, mapping services, and/or identifying and tracking food system trends?
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Contact us to join Valley Verde's community science research group.​