Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

Reflections on research agendas in agroecology

2024-04-16T20:04:24-07:00

First paragraph:

Dismantling the Capitalist Industrial Food System Should Be a Priority

Food systems are crucial to the stability of our planet’s ecosystems and the future of humanity. The industrial capitalist global food system has generated multiple crises that pose a significant threat to the future of our planet. The environmental, health, and social impacts of this system of agriculture are multifaceted and well-documented. Pesticides poison us and destroy the world’s biodiversity (Ali et al., 2020; Beaumelle et al., 2023; Beketov et al., 2013; Kumar et al., 2023). Pesticides and fertilizer runoff pollute our water and create dead zones (Craswell, 2021, Diaz & Rosenberg, 2008). Greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system contribute up to a third of total global emissions (Crippa et al., 2020). Land concentration and land grabbing condemn millions to poverty (DeShutter, 2011). Food insecurity persists even as food production continues to increase (Long et al., 2020l; Müller et al., 2021). Not only is our current agri-food system environmentally and socially damaging, but it is also extremely cost-inefficient. Diet-related health problems, for example, overburden global public health systems and affect workers’ productivity, costing an estimated 9 trillion dollars annually (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], 2023). . . .

Agroecology and corporate power in the U.S.

2024-04-16T19:48:07-07:00

First paragraph:

Introduction

In reflecting on the U.S. Agroecology Summit 2023, we want to bring a key issue to the fore: corporate power and how agroecology can address it in the food system. Taking on existing power structures was an important theme running through the conference, from confronting legacies of colonization and slavery in the food system to battling the marginalization of affected communities in agricultural and food sciences. The corporate dominance of agricultural markets and its corresponding influence in the political realm was certainly present throughout our discussions, but here we want to center the role of corporate power in future discussions of agroecology in the U.S. . . .

Increasing the scope and scale of agroecology in the Northern Great Plains

2024-04-16T19:30:46-07:00

First paragraph:

Large Scale Agroecology

Agroecology is a science, practice, and movement that is gaining momentum worldwide. It aims to provide local, stable, and diverse diets through diversified, resilient, and sustainable agricultural practices (Ewert et al. 2023). However, agroecology seeks to address food systems issues by replacing large-scale commodity-based agriculture with something very different. Agroecology is typically discussed within the scope and scale of smallholder farming while failing to address the issues embedded in large-scale commodity-based agriculture. While we do not take issue with an ideal system where food is produced on small farms, it does not need to exclude agroecology applied to current scales of agriculture in regions like the Northern Great Plains (NGP), where agriculture consists of spatially extensive crop and livestock farms. NGP farms have internal sustainability problems and harmful social, racial, and environmental externalities that can be addressed with agroecological principles. Despite the problems, the large scale of NGP agriculture is not likely to change much in coming decades, and so there is an imperative to apply agroecological principles at larger scales to address immediate issues. We emphasize that applying agroecological principles to large-scale farming could increase crop and forage diversity, conserve biodiversity, strengthen cross-boundary and multi-objective ecosystem management, address regional food security, and encourage co-innovation with crop and livestock producers in the NGP (Tittonell, 2020). If agroecologists don’t address the immediate issues of NGP such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, livestock-based protein production, unequal access to nutritious food, agriautomation, and pandemic food system disruption, then we may only expect industrialized agriculture to provide short-sited profit-motivated solutions repeating a pattern of the past. . . .

Blending knowledge systems for agroecological nutrient management and climate resilience

2024-04-16T19:12:46-07:00

First paragraph:

Agroecology links multiple ways of knowing in order to understand and manage farms as the ecosystems that they are—agroecosystems. Farmers often have deep, place-based knowledge of their agroecosystems that informs how to manage ecological interactions for multiple benefits. Many Indigenous practices sustained food production for generations without fossil fuel inputs, and traditional ecological knowledge is a valuable source of wisdom for adaptive management of agroecosystems. Other forms of ecological knowledge have been developed using Western scientific research approaches. Through the concept of the ecosystem, ecology applies systems thinking to understand complex relationships between organisms (including humans) and their environment across spatio-temporal scales. In practice, blending these ways of knowing has a wide range of interpretations and manifestations, especially in the past several decades, as agroecology has developed into a science, practice, and social movement. Embracing all three of these aspects, we argue that agroecology could more fully integrate traditional ecological knowledge and farmer knowledge with ecological science—including valuing where they overlap and their unique contributions (Kimmerer, 2013)—in support of food system transformation. We focus on the example of agroecological nutrient management in the context of climate change. . . .

Itadakimasu, ikigai, and wabi-sabi

2024-04-16T18:54:33-07:00

First paragraphs:

“How can I trust you?”

Agroecology how?

A murmuration

Itadakimasu

The third panel of the U.S. Agroecology Summit 2023 centered scholars, activists and advocates who, from a variety of institutional positions, have built trusting relationships with farmers and social movements. During the Q and A session, I asked the panel how, in that moment, we might be able to continue to build trust to support relationship-building in the movement for agroecology in North America. The panelists deferred to the audience, and Jonny Bearcub Stiffarm, surrounded by several of her Indigenous sisters, questioned, “How can I trust you?” This question reverberates in my memory of this event. Her response explained how there was a key spirituality dimension that was missing from the program and how that served as a barrier to trust. She explained that she offered silent prayer on behalf of all of us in attendance in recognition of the gifts presented to us in meals, but also in hope that we can all receive each other’s ideas with an open heart. Many others in the audience murmured about their own silent prayers, simultaneously acknowledging the poignancy in the remark, but also how many others hold this silent or silenced spiritual dimension. After sharing with a new colleague, Antonio Roman-Alcala, that I was half Japanese, we speculated about sharing the concept of Itadakimasu with the group. Itadakimasu is a Japanese way to say grace before a meal—a way to give thanks for the food and in acknowledgment of the work of farmers and cooks and all else in the universe that went into preparing a meal. The following morning, there was some intentional space opened up for the group to gather outside. There were several songs, stories, and poems that were shared by Debra Echo-Hawk and others. Inspired by this, I jotted down some haikus in my notebook (which I have, of course, now lost), but I hope to share a bit in this reflection about what ongoing trust-building may look like for agroecology on Turtle Island (North America). . . .

Smart Little Campus Food Pantries

2024-04-16T18:20:10-07:00

Food insecurity among college students is an emerging public health issue, affecting a considerable proportion of the student population nationwide, approximately 35–45%. Research is discovering links between college student food insecurity and physical and mental health, as well as academic performance. Such high prevalence of student food insecurity highlights the urgency of addressing the lack of consistent access to nutritious food. This research examines a pilot intervention at an urban public university that deployed miniature food pantries across campus from which anyone could take food anonymously. The research team systematically restocked these pantries with food on a weekly basis for nearly two school years. Sensors installed in the pantries collected instances when individuals “interacted” with the pantry’s door. The sensor system documented thousands of interactions with the pantries each school year. As such, the intervention can be considered a success. However, the miniature pantry model was not without flaws: its decentralized nature created challenges for the research team, the sensor system was often unstable, and heavy reliance on undergraduate students proved a long-term problem. The research team believes that administrative and information technology improvements could further enhance the model’s ability to mitigate campus food insecurity. This intervention could be an inspiration to other campuses and other institutions considering similar strategies.

THE ECONOMIC PAMPHLETEER: Perspectives on past and future food systems

2024-04-10T08:43:42-07:00

First paragraphs:

In my previous column, I described the transformational changes I have seen in the past and expect to see in the future of American agriculture. Transformational change is not the usual incremental or adaptive change but is defined as “a dramatic evolution of some basic structure of the business itself—its strategy, culture, organization, physical structure, supply chain, or processes” (Harvard Business School Online, 2020, “Transformational Change,” para. 1). I believe the changes in food systems, past and future, have been and will be just as transformational as the changes in agriculture.

When I was growing up in the 1940s in rural Missouri, we had a local food system. Most of what we ate was grown, hunted, fished, or foraged on our farm. Most of the rest was grown and processed within about 50 miles of our farm. There were local meat processors and locker plants, dairy processing plants, fruit and vegetable canneries, and even local flour mills. Coffee, tea, spices, some canned and packaged foods, and occasional bananas and oranges came from elsewhere. My best guess is that at least 75% of what we ate in the 1940s was homegrown or grown and processed locally. . . .

In This Issue: Transformative action in food systems

2024-03-29T19:34:08-07:00

On March 6, 2024, JAFSCD conducted its sixth annual general meeting of members of the JAFSCD Shareholder Consortium, which includes shareholders who support JAFSCD as an open-access journal through annual contributions. The theme of this year’s meeting was how JAFSCD could become a more transformative journal—that is, a journal that effectively rallies scholars, activists, and change agents to collaboratively build bridges to a better food system, locally and globally. JAFSCD takes its cues on this critical subject from its fiscal sponsor, the Center for Transformative Action, a nonprofit affiliate of Cornell University. . . .

Contending food sovereignty with cultivating kinship through community gardens

2024-03-28T14:38:58-07:00

First paragraph:

Gabriel R. Valle’s Gardening on the Margins underscores the importance of engaging in anthropological research through community building in a way that resonates with my entry into food systems research. In embedding himself in Santa Clara Valley, he had the chance to meet with members of the La Mesa Verde community, many of whom are community gardeners who entered community gardening not just out of necessity to meet their needs but also through an “ethic of care,” which the author defines as “caring for others and the relationships that caring creates … make us human” (p. 8).

Public assistance, living environments, and food insecurity

2024-03-23T08:52:21-07:00

Food insecurity continues to affect certain segments of the U.S. population at the household and individual levels even when the economy is experiencing growth. This recognition has led to the design and implementation of food assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, targeting food hardship in low-income families. This is in addition to other types of government assistance, such as housing subsidies and public housing, as low-income households and individuals face similar challenges in housing security. Concern over “concentrated poverty” in traditional public housing environment has contributed to a shift toward mixed-income developments, envisaged to improve the living conditions and economic opportunities of public-housing residents. This paper provides a comparative assessment of food insecurity in traditional and mixed-income public housing communities. It also examines the effect of nonhousing public assistance on food insecurity and the temporal relationship between the timing of food hardship and the receipt of assistance. Administering a modified version of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Household Food Security Module to the majority of residents in the two communities, the researchers found negligible differences in food insecurity between recipients and nonrecipients of government assistance. Nevertheless, government assistance appeared to improve the probability of being food secure as it interacted with living environments, suggestive of greater beneficial effect in the environment of mixed-income housing. The results show that the number of households experiencing reduced food intake was lowest in the first two weeks and highest during the fourth week of the month.