NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — New Jersey residents now have a one-stop source for information on different aspects of the state’s food system, thanks to a new tool designed to build capacity in community non-profits, municipal departments and grassroots organizations to support data-driven decision-making, increased grant funding and tracking of outcomes.

By improving accessibility and transparency of important data relating to the state’s food system, the New Jersey Food System Dashboard helps address one of the key recommendations of the NJ Roadmap for Food System Resilience, which called for increasing knowledge and assessment of key metrics, thereby moving the state towards a more equitable and resilient food system. Funded by a one-year grant from Rutgers Equity Alliance for Community Health, this public tool was co-developed by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Department of Family and Community Health Sciences, NJ Food Democracy Collaborative, community partners from Newark, New Brunswick and Camden, and the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group, which is part of the Center for Urban Policy Research at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

“We hope this tool will be a valuable resource to government agencies, researchers, community-based organizations, and advocates working across all sectors of the food system.  Our goal is to continue working with these groups to ensure the dashboard is addressing their needs” says Dr. Sara Elnakib, principal investigator.

“This new website will make it much more streamlined, and less time consuming to find and share important information about projects and issues of importance to nonprofit organizations, like ours, and the many other community-based food access and food system organizations that participated in this project. It’s a big advancement for the capacity of NJ’s food system stakeholders,” says Jeanine Cava, Lead Facilitator of NJ Food Democracy Collaborative.