The Roanoke Foodshed Network (RFN) is a regional collaboration of farmers, nonprofits, local governments, educators, businesses, and community members working across the Roanoke region to build a more equitable, resilient food and farming system that produces health and abundance for all.
Healthy Food Access
Regional Food Identity
Farming & Food Production
Network Development
Supporting and connecting efforts across the region to increase access to fresh, nutritious food.
The Healthy Food Access Working Group strengthens access to healthy food for youth and families across the Roanoke region. One key strategy is providing community mini-grants to partner organizations implementing projects such as:
Mini-grants are funded through the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth’s Healthy Community Action Team (HCAT) grant. Applications open each April.
Celebrating and strengthening our region’s unique food and farming story–linking history, culture, land stewardship, and economic opportunity.
The Regional Food Identity Working Group elevates the Roanoke region as a vibrant food destination by connecting agriculture, arts, culture, and tourism.
Its signature initiative is the Roanoke Region Food & Farm Trail–a regional website, event series, and multimedia storytelling platform that showcases local farms, markets, restaurants, and food businesses. The working group also leverages the central role arts and culture play in food and farming through creative events, cultural programming, artist collaborations, and media projects that celebrate our region’s foodways and strengthen regional identity.
Advancing regional production, processing, and distribution systems that promote the health and prosperity of farmers, communities, and the land.
The Farming & Food Production Working Group supports farm viability through regional farm tours, value chain coordination, farmland preservation, infrastructure assessments, and farmer education initiatives.
Building a strong, equitable network to support lasting collaboration.
The Network Development Working Group co-creates the structures and systems that support RFN’s work, including policies and procedures, evaluation frameworks, and ongoing research and assessment of our regional food system.
The Roanoke Foodshed Network grew out of more than a decade of conversations with farmers, planners, advocates, and community leaders. Its priorities are grounded in regional research and planning efforts, including:
We are grateful to LEAP for spearheading much of the early research and regional planning that laid the foundation for the Roanoke Foodshed Network. In its first years of development, LEAP served as the Network’s backbone organization, helping to coordinate partners and guide strategy. Today, LEAP continues to support RFN as a leading partner and as its fiscal sponsor.