Pub Date : 2022-09-08DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.011
Kristin M. Osiecki, J. Barnett, Angie P. Mejia, Tessie Burley, Kara Nyhus, Kaitlyn Pickens
Food insecurity on college campuses disproportionately impacts underrepresented students and can contribute to detrimental outcomes. Furthermore, new research with a broader scope includes universitywide populations such as faculty and staff who may also face food insecurity. The reasons behind higher-education food insecurity are complex and based in historic academic structures that create gender and race disparities. Focusing on increasing the numbers of women and minorities entering the graduate school pipeline has resulted in a more equitable distribution of master and doctoral level degrees. However, lower wages, higher workloads, and perceptions of inferior academic performance continue in the current day. These factors contribute to only 26% of women achieving full professorship and only one-third receiving external federal research funding. This reflection provides autoethnographical accounts of three female faculty members who experienced hunger during their undergraduate and graduate careers, and intermittently struggle with purchasing nutritious foods as working professionals. They also discuss their interactions with and observations of their students who also face challenges in securing meals on a regular basis. Three undergraduate female students who are actively involved in campus food projects share their insights from a personal and peer perspective. Grassroot initiatives including an onsite food pantry, a village garden, external funding, and ongoing research attempt to fill gaps. In addition to short-term fixes, it is important to continue conversations with university administration and community leaders to create policies and programs to address campus food insecurity.
{"title":"Studying hard while hungry and broke: Striving for academic well-being while navigating food insecurity","authors":"Kristin M. Osiecki, J. Barnett, Angie P. Mejia, Tessie Burley, Kara Nyhus, Kaitlyn Pickens","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.011","url":null,"abstract":"Food insecurity on college campuses disproportionately impacts underrepresented students and can contribute to detrimental outcomes. Furthermore, new research with a broader scope includes universitywide populations such as faculty and staff who may also face food insecurity. The reasons behind higher-education food insecurity are complex and based in historic academic structures that create gender and race disparities. Focusing on increasing the numbers of women and minorities entering the graduate school pipeline has resulted in a more equitable distribution of master and doctoral level degrees. However, lower wages, higher workloads, and perceptions of inferior academic performance continue in the current day. These factors contribute to only 26% of women achieving full professorship and only one-third receiving external federal research funding. This reflection provides autoethnographical accounts of three female faculty members who experienced hunger during their undergraduate and graduate careers, and intermittently struggle with purchasing nutritious foods as working professionals. They also discuss their interactions with and observations of their students who also face challenges in securing meals on a regular basis. Three undergraduate female students who are actively involved in campus food projects share their insights from a personal and peer perspective. Grassroot initiatives including an onsite food pantry, a village garden, external funding, and ongoing research attempt to fill gaps. In addition to short-term fixes, it is important to continue conversations with university administration and community leaders to create policies and programs to address campus food insecurity.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84434117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.008
Jane Karetny, C. Hoy, Kareem Usher, Jill K. Clark, M. Conroy
National planning and health organizations agree that to achieve healthy and sustainable food systems, planners must balance goals across a spectrum of sustainability issues that include economic vitality, public health, ecological sustainability, social equity, and cultural diversity. This research is an assessment of government-adopted food system plans in the U.S. that examines which topics, across the three dimensions of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic), are included in local food system plans and conducts an exploratory analysis that asks whether the community capitals (built, cultural, social, financial, human, and natural) available in a community are associated with the content of food system plans. The research team first developed a Sustainable Food System Policy Index made up of 26 policy areas across the three dimensions that, in aggregate, define and operationalize sustainable food systems. With this index we evaluated a sample of 28 food system plans for inclusion of these policy impact areas. We then performed an exploratory regression analysis to examine whether the availability of community capitals was associated with the content of food system plans. Findings indicated that jurisdictions integrated a broad range of issues into their food system plans; however, there are certain issues across every dimension of sustainability that are much less frequently included in plans, such as strategies related to participation in decision-making, financial infrastructure, and the stewardship of natural resources. Regression analysis identified statistically significant linear relationships between particular capitals and the proportion of policy areas included in plans. In particular, higher metrics associated with poverty were associated with the inclusion of fewer policy areas and with a potentially narrower policy agenda. This study adds to the plan evaluation literature as one of the first attempts to document the content of a sample of U.S. food system plans through a sustainability lens, contributing to the knowledge of what types of issues are advanced by local food system plans and the policy implications of current gaps in planning agendas.
{"title":"Planning toward sustainable food systems: An exploratory assessment of local U.S. food system plans","authors":"Jane Karetny, C. Hoy, Kareem Usher, Jill K. Clark, M. Conroy","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.008","url":null,"abstract":"National planning and health organizations agree that to achieve healthy and sustainable food systems, planners must balance goals across a spectrum of sustainability issues that include economic vitality, public health, ecological sustainability, social equity, and cultural diversity. This research is an assessment of government-adopted food system plans in the U.S. that examines which topics, across the three dimensions of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic), are included in local food system plans and conducts an exploratory analysis that asks whether the community capitals (built, cultural, social, financial, human, and natural) available in a community are associated with the content of food system plans. The research team first developed a Sustainable Food System Policy Index made up of 26 policy areas across the three dimensions that, in aggregate, define and operationalize sustainable food systems. With this index we evaluated a sample of 28 food system plans for inclusion of these policy impact areas. We then performed an exploratory regression analysis to examine whether the availability of community capitals was associated with the content of food system plans. Findings indicated that jurisdictions integrated a broad range of issues into their food system plans; however, there are certain issues across every dimension of sustainability that are much less frequently included in plans, such as strategies related to participation in decision-making, financial infrastructure, and the stewardship of natural resources. Regression analysis identified statistically significant linear relationships between particular capitals and the proportion of policy areas included in plans. In particular, higher metrics associated with poverty were associated with the inclusion of fewer policy areas and with a potentially narrower policy agenda. This study adds to the plan evaluation literature as one of the first attempts to document the content of a sample of U.S. food system plans through a sustainability lens, contributing to the knowledge of what types of issues are advanced by local food system plans and the policy implications of current gaps in planning agendas.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80456411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-30DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.014
K. OoNorasak, M. Barr, Michael Pennell, J. Hinton, J. Garner, Cora Kerber, Celia Ritter, Liana Dixon, Cana Rohde, T. Stephenson
Food waste and food insecurity present a troubling paradox found across the globe, in local communities, and on college campuses. The Campus Kitchen at the University of Kentucky (CK) is a student-led, sustainability-focused service organization in the Feeding America Network that can serve as a local food waste checkpoint in the southeast region of the United States and address community and campus food insecurity through community-building activities. Farm-to-Fork (F2F), a free weekly meal and education program of CK, provides a case study of leveraging existing resources like student volunteers, CK infrastructure, and campus partners to address college food insecurity. In this case study, we evaluate the pilot model of CK and its F2F Program. The data gathered consist of the amount of food recovered, the number of meals prepared and distributed, and demographics and behavioral perceptions of college students attending F2F. From August 2018 to December 2019, CK food recovery and meal data were collected and an F2F cross-sectional student survey (N=284) was administered twice. The program development, implementation, and evaluation of F2F relies on the social -ecological model (SEM) to capture and highlight the complicated issues of food waste and food insecurity, and the layered approach any initiative addressing such issues must take. Ultimately, F2F highlights how programs such as CK can expand their missions of reducing food waste and food insecurity in communities and on college campuses. CK’s economically and environmentally sustainable practices can be built upon to improve the diversion of food waste and use socially inclusive approaches to provide healthy meals and resources to populations experiencing challenges with food insecurity, both on and off campus, as well as educate all those involved. In turn, such an initiative highlights the need to move beyond stopgap measures, such as food pantries, in both community and campus programs targeting food waste and food insecurity.
{"title":"Evaluation of a sustainable student-led initiative on a college campus addressing food waste and food insecurity","authors":"K. OoNorasak, M. Barr, Michael Pennell, J. Hinton, J. Garner, Cora Kerber, Celia Ritter, Liana Dixon, Cana Rohde, T. Stephenson","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.014","url":null,"abstract":"Food waste and food insecurity present a troubling paradox found across the globe, in local communities, and on college campuses. The Campus Kitchen at the University of Kentucky (CK) is a student-led, sustainability-focused service organization in the Feeding America Network that can serve as a local food waste checkpoint in the southeast region of the United States and address community and campus food insecurity through community-building activities. Farm-to-Fork (F2F), a free weekly meal and education program of CK, provides a case study of leveraging existing resources like student volunteers, CK infrastructure, and campus partners to address college food insecurity. In this case study, we evaluate the pilot model of CK and its F2F Program. The data gathered consist of the amount of food recovered, the number of meals prepared and distributed, and demographics and behavioral perceptions of college students attending F2F. From August 2018 to December 2019, CK food recovery and meal data were collected and an F2F cross-sectional student survey (N=284) was administered twice. The program development, implementation, and evaluation of F2F relies on the social -ecological model (SEM) to capture and highlight the complicated issues of food waste and food insecurity, and the layered approach any initiative addressing such issues must take. Ultimately, F2F highlights how programs such as CK can expand their missions of reducing food waste and food insecurity in communities and on college campuses. CK’s economically and environmentally sustainable practices can be built upon to improve the diversion of food waste and use socially inclusive approaches to provide healthy meals and resources to populations experiencing challenges with food insecurity, both on and off campus, as well as educate all those involved. In turn, such an initiative highlights the need to move beyond stopgap measures, such as food pantries, in both community and campus programs targeting food waste and food insecurity.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80720245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-29DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.013
Wanda Martin, A. Pham, L. Wagner, Adrian Werner
The Garden Patch—an urban agriculture program of the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre (SFBLC)—relies on corporate and individual donations in a time of growing austerity. The SFBLC does an excellent job of communicating programs to donors, but they had not previously completed a return-on-investment analysis. A social return on investment evaluation study for the 2018 growing season provided guidance on the most significant impact of the organization’s strategic objectives and provided an additional tool to communicate the program’s value to donors and the community. This work indicates the monetary value of social benefits gained from the investments made to the SFBLC for its urban agriculture program. Data sources included harvest data, volunteer logs, budget, and workshop attendance; key informant interviews with community members, volunteers, and staff; and community-based telephone and online surveys. It also included in-person surveys with community members accessing food hampers. With feedback from stakeholders, we measured the most valued program outcomes. The inputs and resources to run the Garden Patch were valued at CA$96,474 in 2018.[1] The outputs were vegetables for food hampers, gardening skills, physical and psychological health, and work and educational experiences. Outcomes were valued using financial proxies. For each outcome, the deadweight, attribution, and displacement were considered and discounted to calculate the impact value of $155,419. The final calculation is expressed as a ratio of present value divided by the value of inputs. We conservatively estimate a $1.61 of social value created for every dollar invested in the Garden Patch. We also analyze this method in the context of the current societal neoliberal paradigm, recognizing that there is much work to be done to advance food security and social justice.
{"title":"Social value of a Canadian urban food bank garden","authors":"Wanda Martin, A. Pham, L. Wagner, Adrian Werner","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.013","url":null,"abstract":"The Garden Patch—an urban agriculture program of the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre (SFBLC)—relies on corporate and individual donations in a time of growing austerity. The SFBLC does an excellent job of communicating programs to donors, but they had not previously completed a return-on-investment analysis. A social return on investment evaluation study for the 2018 growing season provided guidance on the most significant impact of the organization’s strategic objectives and provided an additional tool to communicate the program’s value to donors and the community. This work indicates the monetary value of social benefits gained from the investments made to the SFBLC for its urban agriculture program. Data sources included harvest data, volunteer logs, budget, and workshop attendance; key informant interviews with community members, volunteers, and staff; and community-based telephone and online surveys. It also included in-person surveys with community members accessing food hampers. With feedback from stakeholders, we measured the most valued program outcomes. The inputs and resources to run the Garden Patch were valued at CA$96,474 in 2018.[1] The outputs were vegetables for food hampers, gardening skills, physical and psychological health, and work and educational experiences. Outcomes were valued using financial proxies. For each outcome, the deadweight, attribution, and displacement were considered and discounted to calculate the impact value of $155,419. The final calculation is expressed as a ratio of present value divided by the value of inputs. We conservatively estimate a $1.61 of social value created for every dollar invested in the Garden Patch. We also analyze this method in the context of the current societal neoliberal paradigm, recognizing that there is much work to be done to advance food security and social justice.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82470395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-22DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.015
Tsegamariam Dula
{"title":"Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food system in Abeshge District, Central Ethiopia","authors":"Tsegamariam Dula","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76082787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-13DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.010
Jeremy Berger, Raychel E. Santo, Isabela Garces
With their significant purchasing power, institutions of higher education can create substantial changes in the food system through their food purchases. The Real Food Challenge launched a national campaign in 2011 to shift food procurement at colleges and universities across the United States to local and community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane sources. In 2013, the president of Johns Hopkins University (JHU) signed on to the Real Food Commitment, pledging to purchase at least 35% “Real Food” by 2020. Drawing on interviews with students, dining staff, and vendors as well as an analysis of purchasing data, this research analyzes the successes and challenges that JHU stakeholders encountered in their efforts to implement this commitment. Although the university fell short of achieving its goal of 35% “Real Food” procurement, JHU spent US$4.7 million on local and community-based, humane, ecologically sound, and fair foods between 2013 and 2019. Most of the university’s successful procurement shifts focused on local and community-based foods and animal source foods. Challenges that hindered additional procurement shifts included the volumes and food preparation required by the university, student dining preferences, contracts that required purchasing from specific vendors, and staffing limitations. Lessons learned from the implementation of the Real Food Commitment can inform the evolution of sustainable and ethical food procurement standards at JHU as well as other universities and institutions.
{"title":"Evaluating the successes and challenges toward achieving the Real Food Commitment at Johns Hopkins University","authors":"Jeremy Berger, Raychel E. Santo, Isabela Garces","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.010","url":null,"abstract":"With their significant purchasing power, institutions of higher education can create substantial changes in the food system through their food purchases. The Real Food Challenge launched a national campaign in 2011 to shift food procurement at colleges and universities across the United States to local and community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane sources. In 2013, the president of Johns Hopkins University (JHU) signed on to the Real Food Commitment, pledging to purchase at least 35% “Real Food” by 2020. Drawing on interviews with students, dining staff, and vendors as well as an analysis of purchasing data, this research analyzes the successes and challenges that JHU stakeholders encountered in their efforts to implement this commitment. Although the university fell short of achieving its goal of 35% “Real Food” procurement, JHU spent US$4.7 million on local and community-based, humane, ecologically sound, and fair foods between 2013 and 2019. Most of the university’s successful procurement shifts focused on local and community-based foods and animal source foods. Challenges that hindered additional procurement shifts included the volumes and food preparation required by the university, student dining preferences, contracts that required purchasing from specific vendors, and staffing limitations. Lessons learned from the implementation of the Real Food Commitment can inform the evolution of sustainable and ethical food procurement standards at JHU as well as other universities and institutions.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80985986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-11DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.012
Kathryn Carroll, Rachel Schichtl
Food insecurity continues to be a problem in the U.S., especially in Arkansas, which ranked second in the nation in food-insecure households in 2020 (Arkansas Food Bank, n.d.). To help address this, community-based food pantries make food available directly to area residents. Food pantry demand has increased during COVID-19, which has exacerbated food insecurity, particularly in the southern U.S. In Arkansas, the Arkansas Food Bank (AFB) serves as the state’s largest nongovernmental food aid provider, working with 310 pantries. Pantries typically distribute food to clients in one of two ways: by using a prefilled bag or box of items (the traditional model), or by allowing clients to select items (the client-choice model). Although research has shown that the client-choice model has a variety of benefits for client health and wellbeing, pantries using the traditional model remain the norm in Arkansas, accounting for 87% of total pantries. Currently, there is limited research that identifies perceived barriers to converting to a client-choice model among pantry managers, and that identifies whether perceived barriers and localized concerns contribute to different operation styles among pantries. To address this, we examined perceived barriers to client-choice conversion using a mixed-method survey conducted with 187 Arkansas food pantry managers. We used common factor analysis to identify four barriers perceived by pantries to converting their traditional pantry to a client-choice pantry: (1) food supply concerns, (2) having limited nonfood resources, (3) food waste concerns, and (4) confusion from clients and nutritional concerns. A cluster analysis of pantry respondents was also used, based on their level of concern for the four identified perceived barriers. Clusters we identified are Potential Converters (18.2%), Confusion Concerned pantries (56.7%), and pantries who are Skeptics (25.1%). Our findings suggest that food pantry stakeholders may need additional outreach and education concerning the various ways that client choice can be implemented. Our results provide valuable information for those involved in distributing food aid to food-insecure households.
{"title":"Perceived barriers to client-choice conversion among Arkansas food pantries","authors":"Kathryn Carroll, Rachel Schichtl","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.012","url":null,"abstract":"Food insecurity continues to be a problem in the U.S., especially in Arkansas, which ranked second in the nation in food-insecure households in 2020 (Arkansas Food Bank, n.d.). To help address this, community-based food pantries make food available directly to area residents. Food pantry demand has increased during COVID-19, which has exacerbated food insecurity, particularly in the southern U.S. In Arkansas, the Arkansas Food Bank (AFB) serves as the state’s largest nongovernmental food aid provider, working with 310 pantries. Pantries typically distribute food to clients in one of two ways: by using a prefilled bag or box of items (the traditional model), or by allowing clients to select items (the client-choice model). Although research has shown that the client-choice model has a variety of benefits for client health and wellbeing, pantries using the traditional model remain the norm in Arkansas, accounting for 87% of total pantries. Currently, there is limited research that identifies perceived barriers to converting to a client-choice model among pantry managers, and that identifies whether perceived barriers and localized concerns contribute to different operation styles among pantries. To address this, we examined perceived barriers to client-choice conversion using a mixed-method survey conducted with 187 Arkansas food pantry managers. We used common factor analysis to identify four barriers perceived by pantries to converting their traditional pantry to a client-choice pantry: (1) food supply concerns, (2) having limited nonfood resources, (3) food waste concerns, and (4) confusion from clients and nutritional concerns. A cluster analysis of pantry respondents was also used, based on their level of concern for the four identified perceived barriers. Clusters we identified are Potential Converters (18.2%), Confusion Concerned pantries (56.7%), and pantries who are Skeptics (25.1%). Our findings suggest that food pantry stakeholders may need additional outreach and education concerning the various ways that client choice can be implemented. Our results provide valuable information for those involved in distributing food aid to food-insecure households.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90966981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-08DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.009
Anna Zoodsma, M. Dudley, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern
This article looks at the United States’ federal H-2A Temporary Agricultural Visa Program and reforms proposed by the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. In this policy analysis, we draw on media content analysis and qualitative interviews to compare the viewpoints of farmers, workers, grower and worker advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians. We find that perspectives on the program are dependent upon actors’ level of direct interaction with workers. Moderate-sized farmers and regionally based worker advocacy groups tend to be the most concerned with day-to-day program operations and fair working conditions. In contrast, national-level advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians are less critical of the program and seek to broadly expand farmer access to guestworkers, justifying proposed program reforms with discourses of national food security and immigration reform. Ultimately, we suggest that engaging a food systems lens to understand these policies provides a more nuanced perspective, addressing national food security and immigration as related issues.
{"title":"National food security, immigration reform, and the importance of worker engagement in agricultural guestworker debates","authors":"Anna Zoodsma, M. Dudley, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.009","url":null,"abstract":"This article looks at the United States’ federal H-2A Temporary Agricultural Visa Program and reforms proposed by the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. In this policy analysis, we draw on media content analysis and qualitative interviews to compare the viewpoints of farmers, workers, grower and worker advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians. We find that perspectives on the program are dependent upon actors’ level of direct interaction with workers. Moderate-sized farmers and regionally based worker advocacy groups tend to be the most concerned with day-to-day program operations and fair working conditions. In contrast, national-level advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians are less critical of the program and seek to broadly expand farmer access to guestworkers, justifying proposed program reforms with discourses of national food security and immigration reform. Ultimately, we suggest that engaging a food systems lens to understand these policies provides a more nuanced perspective, addressing national food security and immigration as related issues.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"22 7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89021451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.006
Catherine G. Campbell, Alicia Papanek, Alia N. DeLong, John M. Diaz, C. Gusto, D. Tropp
There is increasing awareness that community food policies and programs can address issues of equity, sustainability, profitability, and resilience in food systems. Community coalitions, local governments, food policy councils, cooperative extension, and other stakeholders seek to improve community food systems through policy and programmatic development. However, these groups often do not know what types of policy or program models exist to help achieve their goals. This research identified expert consensus on three important topics related to community food systems resilience: (1) values that should guide adopting and implementing policies and programs to facilitate community food systems resilience, (2) benefits of adopting policies and programs that support community food systems resilience, and (3) policies, programs, and initiatives that are indicators of resilience. These indicators can be used to assess the resilience of communities and to help communities identify policy options to achieve specific goals and objectives. The results of this study were used to create a community food system resilience audit tool that community groups can use to assess the current resiliency of their food system, identify priorities, and set goals. The audit tool focuses on seven core themes that contribute to community food systems resilience: agricultural and ecological sustainability, community health, community self-reliance, distributive and democratic leadership, focus on the farmer and food maker, food justice, and place-based economics. The individual indicators in this audit tool provide specific policies and practices that can be adopted by local governments, supported by cooperative extension agents, and advocated for by food policy councils and community-based organizations.
{"title":"Community food systems resilience: Values, benefits, and indicators","authors":"Catherine G. Campbell, Alicia Papanek, Alia N. DeLong, John M. Diaz, C. Gusto, D. Tropp","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.006","url":null,"abstract":"There is increasing awareness that community food policies and programs can address issues of equity, sustainability, profitability, and resilience in food systems. Community coalitions, local governments, food policy councils, cooperative extension, and other stakeholders seek to improve community food systems through policy and programmatic development. However, these groups often do not know what types of policy or program models exist to help achieve their goals. This research identified expert consensus on three important topics related to community food systems resilience: (1) values that should guide adopting and implementing policies and programs to facilitate community food systems resilience, (2) benefits of adopting policies and programs that support community food systems resilience, and (3) policies, programs, and initiatives that are indicators of resilience. These indicators can be used to assess the resilience of communities and to help communities identify policy options to achieve specific goals and objectives. The results of this study were used to create a community food system resilience audit tool that community groups can use to assess the current resiliency of their food system, identify priorities, and set goals. The audit tool focuses on seven core themes that contribute to community food systems resilience: agricultural and ecological sustainability, community health, community self-reliance, distributive and democratic leadership, focus on the farmer and food maker, food justice, and place-based economics. The individual indicators in this audit tool provide specific policies and practices that can be adopted by local governments, supported by cooperative extension agents, and advocated for by food policy councils and community-based organizations.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82195435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-28DOI: 10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.007
Dani Ladyka, Yona Sipos, Marie L Spiker, Sarah Collier
The 2020 growing season presented new and significant challenges for farmers and farms across the United States as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. The rich and diverse agricultural landscape of Washington State offers a valuable microcosm in which to explore the experiences of farms in the U.S. during the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively assess the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on directly marketing small farms in western Washington State, with a focus on farmers’ experiences with resilience. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 15 farmers and used thematic analysis to explore the influence of the pandemic on overall experiences, responses, and values and perceptions related to small farms. Interviewees provided insights on the impacts of the pandemic on their daily farm operations, production costs, marketing channels, demand, and revenue. Farmers also reported shifting personal and public attitudes towards small farms during the pandemic. Product diversity, flexibility, multiple forms of support, values, and access to resources emerged as drivers of COVID-19 impacts and farm adaptations. When compared to existing frameworks on farm resilience, farms in this study are seen to demonstrate resilience via buffer and adaptive capabilities, which enable them to absorb and adjust to shocks. Farmers also discussed resilience via transformative capability, the potential to create new systems, leveraging the collective power of small farms to shape future food systems. Future research on the resilience of small farms should focus on ways to both promote resilience attributes and facilitate the ability of farmers to act on resilience capabilities.
{"title":"A qualitative investigation of resilience among small farms in western Washington State: Experiences during the first growing season of COVID-19","authors":"Dani Ladyka, Yona Sipos, Marie L Spiker, Sarah Collier","doi":"10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.007","url":null,"abstract":"The 2020 growing season presented new and significant challenges for farmers and farms across the United States as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. The rich and diverse agricultural landscape of Washington State offers a valuable microcosm in which to explore the experiences of farms in the U.S. during the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively assess the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on directly marketing small farms in western Washington State, with a focus on farmers’ experiences with resilience. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 15 farmers and used thematic analysis to explore the influence of the pandemic on overall experiences, responses, and values and perceptions related to small farms. Interviewees provided insights on the impacts of the pandemic on their daily farm operations, production costs, marketing channels, demand, and revenue. Farmers also reported shifting personal and public attitudes towards small farms during the pandemic. Product diversity, flexibility, multiple forms of support, values, and access to resources emerged as drivers of COVID-19 impacts and farm adaptations. When compared to existing frameworks on farm resilience, farms in this study are seen to demonstrate resilience via buffer and adaptive capabilities, which enable them to absorb and adjust to shocks. Farmers also discussed resilience via transformative capability, the potential to create new systems, leveraging the collective power of small farms to shape future food systems. Future research on the resilience of small farms should focus on ways to both promote resilience attributes and facilitate the ability of farmers to act on resilience capabilities.","PeriodicalId":51829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91357575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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