TY - JOUR AU - Jablonski, Becca B. R. AU - Thilmany McFadden, Dawn PY - 2019/01/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - IN THIS ISSUE: What Is a ‘Multiplier’ Anyway? Assessing the Economics of Local Food Systems Toolkit JF - Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development JA - J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev. VL - 8 IS - C SE - Editorial DO - 10.5304/jafscd.2019.08C.013 UR - https://foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/666 SP - 1-8 AB - <p><em>First paragraph:</em></p><p>This special issue examines the effectiveness of organizing and conducting formal impact assess­ments in measuring the economic impacts and opportunity costs associated with local food system policies, programming, and investment. It features 11 articles by a diverse range of academic research­ers and community stakeholders who have used the publication, the <em>Economics of Local Food Systems: A Toolkit to Guide Community Discussions, Assessments and Choices</em><a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> (which we refer to as “the Toolkit” hereafter) to initialize, frame, and carry out eco­nomic impact assessments of local and regional food system activity. Many of the case studies fea­tured in this special issue are directly connected to the over 30 technical assis­tance workshops pro­vided by the Toolkit’s authors and other partners between 2015 and 2018 follow­ing the Toolkit’s release. Our intention in compil­ing these papers is to gauge whether practitioners and researchers find the Toolkit useful in demon­strating compelling evidence of the economic impacts of food system development strategies, and when they do, to demonstrate its utility and share best practices.</p><p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> See the Toolkit online at <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/publications/content/economics-local-food-systems-toolkit-guide-community-discussions-assessments">https://www.ams.usda.gov/publications/content/economics-local-food-systems-toolkit-guide-community-discussions-assessments</a></p><p>See the <a title="press release archive " href="http://www.icontact-archive.com/archive?c=488966&amp;f=60033&amp;s=84565&amp;m=971943&amp;t=257c360ddc23fcec50d37942ed548ee4169a6c0d76d51e227fa886af9ecdf0c7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> for this article.&nbsp;</p> ER -