Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

Understanding caregiver perspectives to improve food security screening in healthcare settings

2026-06-19T01:53:37+00:00

Healthcare institutions are increasingly engaged in efforts to screen patients for food insecurity and connect households to supportive resources, often in direct collaboration with community development practitioners and aligned with Food Is Medicine initiatives. Evidence of the effectiveness of these efforts, however, is limited. Drawing on data from six focus groups with a total of 42 participants, conducted in both English and Spanish, this study explores how low-income parental caregivers experience and understand food security screenings within healthcare settings. From there, it identifies communication barriers and opportunities for improvement. The analysis was guided by communication infrastructure theory (CIT), a framework for understanding how a community’s “storytelling network,” consisting of local residents, organizations, and media, can be harnessed for health promotion. Findings revealed a complex mix of trust and skepticism. While some caregivers appreciated efforts to connect families with resources, many expressed concern and fear related to stigma, privacy breaches, and potential intervention by child protective services. Spanish-speaking participants also highlighted linguistic barriers that increased frustration with the process. Participants recommended that screening processes prioritize choice and provide follow-through with tangible resource connections, ideally facilitated through trusted community intermediaries. Applying CIT, our analysis suggests that healthcare institutions can strengthen food security outreach by building relationships with familiar individuals and organizations in the community’s storytelling network. Doing so requires fostering trust through transparent, empathetic engagement. Overall, the findings demonstrate an important role for practitioners in food systems and community development to develop community-based communication strategies with healthcare institutions. This study both advances theory and offers actionable guidance to make food security screening more equitable, effective, and responsive to caregivers’ lived realities.

Impacts of the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Safety Rules, exemptions, and behavioral insights among small-scale produce growers

2026-06-19T01:43:57+00:00

While the Produce Safety Rule (PSR) of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) sets a regulatory framework to promote the production of safe produce, the exemption criteria it provides exclude many very small and small-scale farms from full compliance. Regardless of exemptions, food safety remains a shared priority across the food system. For qualifying farms, exemption status provides some benefits but can also introduce limitations which farms might need to navigate. To examine the cognitive components that shape the food safety decision-making processes of FSMA-exempt produce growers, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was adapted as a framework in this study. Growers’ beliefs and perceptions that influenced their intent to implement safe practices were investigated. Growers’ responses to the benefits and limitations of the exemptions from the FSMA Produce Safety Rule were also explored as part of the cognitive analysis. Through a series of focus group discussions, information was collected from thirty Indiana FSMA-exempt produce growers. Study participants expressed deep commitment to providing safe food to their consumers. It was determined that the importance of their own personal values and relationships within the food system contributed to decisions that affect their customers. A recurring theme was the trade-off between the reduced regulatory burden of the PSR and the increased liability risks in the absence of regulatory safeguards. Findings also highlighted the intersection of perceived benefits and limitations, regulatory expectations, and how availability of resources collectively shapes approaches to food safety. The findings underscore the unique situation of FSMA-exempt produce growers and the importance of tailoring food safety outreach programs that offer support based on practical, trust-based approaches.

Four points to reframe the debate on public supermarkets in New York City

2026-06-15T21:37:33+00:00

First paragraphs:

Introduction: New York City’s food retail landscape is dominated by small-scale retailers that make neighborhoods unique and culturally tailored. I once counted 88 produce vendors and grocers within four blocks of Manhattan’s Chinatown, a shopping artery that serves an East Asian panoply of specialty foods. Whereas supermarkets are the dominant destination for grocery shopping around the county, for the 1,000 supermarkets scattered around New York City (NYC), there are 25,000 independent stores, thousands of mobile produce vendors, and nearly 140 farmers markets (Sowder, 2022). The food and beverage sector is a major engine of employment, providing one in four jobs (New York State Comptroller, 2020).

There has been rapid growth in national supermarket franchises opening across the city, and now NYC Mayor Mamdani’s administration is advancing plans to establish five publicly owned supermarkets in response to rising food insecurity and food costs. This plan is narrowly focused on large-scale retail solutions to improve underutilized, city-owned property. But this strategy should be more holistic; it should include small, culturally embedded food businesses and community organizations that already contribute to food access, affordability, and resilience, but need more support. NYC’s diverse retail food economy, emerging food council initiatives, and Manhattan’s Chinatown offer evidence that resilient food systems are built through decentralized social, economic, and supply-chain relationships embedded in place. . . .

Farmers market manager networks for sustainability, support, and innovation

2026-06-15T21:33:32+00:00

In most states, farmers markets function independently of each other and subsist on modest budgets. The groups and programs that bring independent farmers market managers together for education, collaboration, and sharing are often funded through government programs and grants. With increasing uncertainty of grant funding and government programs, alternative low-cost ways to sustain markets, mentor managers, and foster innovation in local food systems are needed. Business networks and clusters have been successful in other industries. To evaluate the potential of this type of network in mentoring, knowledge sharing, and facilitating collective fund development among farmers market managers, a study was conducted in three regions of Wisconsin. The study included the creation of regional network groups that collaborated on a market promotion project for the benefit of all network markets, utilizing a decision-making tool, the Purpose, Assessment, Tactics, Implementation (PATI) Framework. Overall, these networks were successful. Managers valued belonging to the network, successfully collaborated on regional projects, and intended to continue with the network once the study concluded.

The pastoral arrangement

2026-06-15T21:26:29+00:00

First paragraph:

In Hoofprints on the Land, Ilse Köhler-Rollefson presents a persuasive and carefully researched argument that traditional pastoral herders are among the most important stewards of the world’s ecologically significant landscapes. She demonstrates how pastoralists maintain seasonal grazing rhythms that have developed through generations of close observation and adaptation. At a time when scientific and policy discussions often focus on technology, efficiency, and optimization, this book encourages readers to consider a different mindset. Köhler-Rollefson argues that traditional pastoral practices do not conflict with sustainability and can instead support locally grounded, ecologically sound livestock systems. . . .

Food production and the limits of sustainability

2026-06-12T22:12:04+00:00

First paragraph:

Michael Grunwald’s book We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate delves into the ugly world of food production and its detrimental impact on the environment. The book explores the different technologies that have been invented to address the problems caused by the need to produce more food. Grunwald follows the life and the research of a former environmental lawyer, Tim Searchinger. It is through the extensive work of Searchinger that Grunwald was compelled to pen this book. Some of the key themes that stem from this reading are the ethicality of science in pushing certain ideas as being environmentally friendly, as well as the clash between experts and environmental advocates and land usage and food production challenges. The reading makes one aware that land use challenges may be far-reaching, in the sense that demand in one area may create land exploitation in a place far from where the demand is. . . .

Strengthening institutional capacity for fresh food safety governance

2026-06-11T21:49:24+00:00

Institutional capacity is a critical factor in ensuring safe and sustainable local food systems, particularly for fresh foods that are highly perishable and often traded through traditional markets. As an agrarian country and one of the world’s major food producers, Indonesia manages a wide range of fresh, plant-based food commodities that require effective food safety oversight. In this context, strengthening fresh food safety governance supports local producers by promoting safer production standards and practices, while reinforcing traditional markets as trusted channels for fresh food distribution. It also contributes to regional food system resilience by ensuring the availability of fresh foods that are safe in both quantity and quality. Within Indonesia’s decentralized governance structure, Regional Food Safety Competent Authorities (RFSCA) serve as key institutional actors responsible for safeguarding the safety of fresh foods at the subnational level. As of 2025, a total of 34 provincial food affairs agencies have been formally verified as RFSCA. However, the institutional performance of around 60% of these authorities remains uneven and, in several cases, suboptimal. This study examines the institutional drivers influencing RFSCA performance and develops strategies to strengthen their operational capacity using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and Best–Worst Method (BWM). Data was collected from 34 provinces through structured surveys and expert assessments. The findings indicate that adequate budget allocation and standardized institutional mandates function as fundamental drivers of institutional performance. Approximately 80% of RFSCA operate with insufficient budgetary support, while core functions such as monitoring, evaluation, and capacity-building activities are largely dependent on these foundational institutional conditions. The proposed framework offers actionable guidance for regional authorities and policymakers to enhance coordination, accountability, and resilience in fresh food safety governance—ultimately supporting safer and more resilient local food systems.

The patchwork of blue justice: A review of Climate Change, Small-Scale Fisheries and Blue Justice

2026-06-11T21:41:01+00:00

First paragraph:

In Climate Change, Small-Scale Fisheries, and Blue Justice, author Sunil Santha crafts a poetic and powerful narrative grounded in the ‘patchy epistemologies’ of small-scale Fishers across India and the Indian Ocean region (in this review, I capitalize ‘Fish,’ ‘Fishers,’ and ‘Nature’ in alignment with Santha’s style). While these Fishers constitute the majority of the global fisheries workforce and play a critical role in sustaining coastal food security, they are marginally represented in policy and governance. Weaving together case studies, ethnographic accounts, and theoretical insights, Santha illustrates how their eco-social worlds are being reshaped under an increasingly globalizing food system and warming climate. This book critiques reductive climate solutions and sustainable intensification narratives while offering alternative, justice-oriented frameworks that center on the situated knowledge and lived experiences of small-scale Fishers. . . .

Work to worldview: Rancher identity and cultural solidarity in Cow Talk

2026-06-11T21:31:29+00:00

First paragraphs:

Histories of western ranchers have often treated them primarily as political antagonists of the federal state or as precursors to late-twentieth-century protest movements. Cow Talk challenges this framing by asking how ranchers in the postwar Mountain West came to imagine themselves as a cohesive community long before those conflicts crystallized. Berry frames cow talk as a ranching analog to shop talk, emphasizing how occupational language helped forge solidarity among cattle ranchers, a shared occupational vernacular rooted in everyday cattle work.

Ranchers’ recurring stories of drought, blizzards, disease, and market collapse form the experiential core of Cow Talk. Berry argues that these shared narratives, circulated through association meetings and publications, allowed cow talk to function as a form of cultural glue, enabling ranchers to manage profound postwar changes such as mechanization, scientific management, federal regulation, ecological instability, and demographic pressure without fracturing internally. In Berry’s telling, cow talk was not merely slang or occupational chatter but a powerful discourse that framed how ranchers understood threats, elevated forms of labor, and justified claims to expertise, authority, and entitlement. By repeatedly narrating shared hardships and triumphs, such as recurring environmental and market crises, ranchers constructed a sense of common fate that muted divisions of class, gender, and race while reinforcing a singular producer identity. While Berry persuasively demonstrates how cow talk forged cultural solidarity, this emphasis invites further scrutiny of how that solidarity depended on the selective suppression of class distinctions between ranch owners and wage laborers, as postwar ranching became increasingly capital-intensive. . . .

Improving USDA’s public price and volume data for an equitable organic food value chain

2026-06-04T02:37:50+00:00

Since 1915, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Market News has supported a key element of our agricultural economic system: equity in access to pricing information between buyers and sellers and across operations of various sizes. Today, the privatization of agricultural information and market concentration in the food system make this public data source especially important for supporting a more fair and stable market for the growing organic sector. In this study, we use a mixed-methods approach to explore how AMS Market News organic price and volume data can be improved to better support organic agrifood system actors. Based on 26 interviews and 227 survey responses from organic producers, processors, distributors, and retailers across California, we find consistent interest in increased organic market data presented in visual formats with trend explanations, despite only limited direct reliance on Market News organic data throughout most of the sector. We also identify three main areas where Market News organic price and volume data could be improved: the data interface should be made more accessible and informative, inaccuracies and gaps in the data should be addressed or explained, and efforts to include more organic specialty crops should continue. These improvements will help the development of a more robust public source of organic market data that could especially benefit smaller-scale operations, given the increasing corporate consolidation in the agrifood system.