Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

Connecting local food system actors for climate-friendly public catering in Germany

Annika Fricke, Franziska Bürker, Pia Laborgne, Sarah Meyer-Soylu, Eva Wendeberg — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Climate-friendly nutrition is a pivotal subject for the future. The Climate-friendly Cafeterias (CliCa) project was initiated as a one-year transformative and transdisciplinary initiative to support the Karlsruhe (Germany) Climate Protection Concept 2030. Linked to this, the transformation goal of CliCa was to implement climate-friendly and sustainable measures (referred to as ‘levers’) in local cafeterias. These measures included increasing the share of organic, regional, seasonal, vegetarian, and vegan food, along with reducing food waste. The research goal (research question) was to identify the barriers for implementing levers. This was accompanied by the educational goal aimed to raise awareness among cafeteria staff and guests. The article presents the transdisciplinary design, addresses the research question, and evaluates the transformational goal by presenting outcomes (changes within the project duration) and impacts (changes after the project duration). Within the CliCa project, a heterogeneous network consisting of up to 40 actors was established, with a core group of 11 institutions engaging in regular participation. Two open questionnaires (N = 10 and N = 9) were conducted during the project’s duration, and eight follow-up interviews were conducted two years after the project’s conclusion. The data analysis revealed 10 key barriers to implementation and several measurable changes related to the identified levers. The most frequently cited barrier was ‘Guest acceptance,’ followed by ‘Missing/unclear framework conditions,’ ‘Lack of money,’ and ‘Higher price.’ The majority of barriers were mentioned in relation to the lever ‘Increasing the use of organically produced food.’ The findings of this study indicate that individual levers and barriers are interrelated and should be addressed in combination. With respect to the transformation goal, we con-clude that establishing a stakeholder network with a focus on peer-to-peer counseling is particularly effective when participants encounter similar chal-lenges and operate under comparable systemic conditions, such as infrastructure, acceptance by cafeteria guests, and economic frameworks.

Building protective data infrastructure for urban community gardens

Peleg Kremer, Craig Borowiak, Madeline Scolio — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Across U.S. cities, community gardens embody a conundrum: they are vital to community well-being and integral to urban social infrastructure, yet they are also profoundly vulnerable due to insecure land tenure, fragmented policy support, and systemic disinvestment. This reflective essay examines how garden data infrastructure can shape both sides of this conundrum, strengthening gardens’ contributions to community life while also heightening their vulnerability to land loss. We focus on the case of the Philadelphia Garden Data Collaborative (PGDC), a multistakeholder initiative dedicated to documenting, protecting, and advocating for community-managed green space in Philadelphia. As participant researchers, we trace the evolution of PGDC’s efforts from grassroots mapping to the development of coordinated data stewardship, and we explore how these efforts have enabled both emergency interventions (such as preventing sheriff sale evictions) and long-term preservation strategies. We examine the ethical dilemmas involved in collecting and using sensitive community data in a context where bureaucratic neglect has historically rendered gardens invisible, and where increased visibility can expose them to new forms of risk. While data can strengthen advocacy and inform policy, it must be coupled with secure tenure mechanisms and sustained public investment to ensure the future of urban gardens.

“I don’t say food desert, I say food apartheid”

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Physical access to healthy food in the U.S. has been shaped by social and economic structures that include historical segregation and inequities in neighborhood development and investment. African Americans are most likely to reside in these historically segregated and economically challenged neighborhoods that have fewer healthy food options. Consequently, residents face significantly greater barriers to accessing healthy foods. To better understand the food insecurity experiences and food access needs of residents living in predominantly African American neighborhoods, we used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach and partnered with a community advisory board (CAB) in an urban Florida community. The CAB sought to capture the experience of living in a food desert by designing data collection tools, and recruiting and interviewing participants who lived or had family ties in Southeast Gainesville. Between February and December 2021, the team hosted three online focus groups with a total of 17 adult participants and administered a 35-item survey (N = 103). The survey response showing that 48% could not consistently afford to prepare a healthy meal was used as a measure of food insecurity. Significant predictors of this response were whether the participant also worried about running out of food (OR = 0.181, 95% CI [0.058, 0.561]), used Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assistance (OR = 0.515, 95% CI [0.266, 0.997]), and occasionally had to avoid their preferred grocery store for some reason (OR = 0.177, 95% CI [0.049, 0.641]). Over one third (37%) of households reported special dietary needs due to health issues, and many of those (39%) said they had trouble meeting those needs. Two major themes emerged from the qualitative data: navigating the structures of food apartheid and community food solutions. Underscoring the need for CBPR approaches to food systems planning and intervention, these results suggest that local knowledge of the food environment is critical for understanding how households in food deserts experience food insecurity and view potential solutions.

Make every bite count

Qi Jiang, Alba J. Collart, Felipe de Figueiredo Silva, Yefan Nian — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Recent federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could reduce children’s access to free school meals by affecting schools’ eligibility for the Community Eligibility Provision program. In this study, we examine whether food waste reduction can be used as a strategy to sustain meal programs in South Carolina. Using direct weighing waste data and surveys, we assess potential cost savings, reinvestment opportunities, and meal quality improvements.

Note: Correction published August 25, 2026, to reinsert missing sentence and footnote on fifth page.

Audited engagement: Making agri-food community development “count” in higher education and beyond

Michael Carolan — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Community engagement is central to work in agriculture, food systems, and community development, especially within land-grant universities and extension programs. Recently, these efforts have been communicated increasingly through annual impact reports, engagement summaries, and outreach dashboards to demonstrate their relevance, accountability, and public value. This paper presents a reflective, curiosity-driven, document-based analysis of publicly available engagement and impact reports from several universities, extension systems, and related organizations involved in agri-food and community development. It explores how these reporting practices influence what is regarded as meaningful engagement. The paper introduces the concept of “audited engagement” to describe a situation where engagement is recognized and valued mainly through quantifiable indicators such as participation, reach, and activity. These indicators serve important institutional purposes: they make engagement visible to funders and stakeholders, justify ongoing investment, and shield engagement from marginalization. However, they often emphasize process over transformation. While reports document efforts such as events held, partnerships formed, and people reached, they tend to fall short of capturing structural changes, long-term redistribution, or shifts in authority, which are central to justice-oriented agri-food systems work. Instead of assessing specific programs or suggesting new metrics, the paper offers a conceptual analysis of how engagement is increasingly managed through reporting. This clarifies how evaluation practices shape what engagement can reasonably achieve and what remains hard to articulate.

Scaling local food: A literature review on the organization, benefits, and challenges of food hubs

Simone Ubertino, Patrick Mundler — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Direct-to-consumer channels have developed as alternatives to conventional agri-food systems characterized by long supply chains, market concentration, and limited connections between producers and consumers. Yet despite their potential, these channels face significant limitations that constrain their expansion and keep them largely confined to niche markets. In response, food hubs have emerged as intermediaries that aggregate and distribute products from multiple farms, enabling small- and medium-sized producers to reach institutional buyers while preserving the goals and values of local food systems. Synthesizing evidence from 34 peer-reviewed empirical studies, this review consolidates a dispersed body of research by clarifying the organizational and marketing structures, financing approaches, and documented impacts of food hubs. In doing so, the review shows that food hubs should be understood not simply as alternative distribution channels but as organizational intermediaries whose viability depends on the complex coordination of logistics, revenue streams, stakeholder relations, and economic and social objectives. It also highlights persistent challenges in farmer coordination, institutional market stability, and financial resilience that underscore the difficulties of sustaining food hubs and scaling local food systems.

Formative research on strategies to improve food donation in grocery retail

Kaitlyn Harper, Steffanie Espat, Lee Davis, Nicole Labruto, Roni Neff — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Over one-third of food produced in the U.S. goes unsold or uneaten, including a large portion of high-quality food that could be donated to individuals utilizing the charitable food system. This formative research study explored barriers to donation and created strategies to improve donation among frontline grocery retailer workers. In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with grocery retail workers (n = 28), corporate leadership (n = 6), and donation partners (n = 5), and a series of in-person meetings with a cohort of 10 frontline worker “Champions” from a large U.S. grocery retail chain to identify common barriers to food donation and co-design strategies to reduce wasted food and improve food donation in their stores. We created four strategies: (1) conduct new trainings; (2) utilize updated donation guidelines with posters and detailed handouts; (3) strengthen connections between donation partners, associates, and stores; and (4) run a donation incentives contest. Additionally, Champions highlighted the need for open, clear, timely, accessible, and reciprocal communication and feedback as essential to the success of all four strategies. As organic waste ban policies expand, grocery retailers will need to increase the use of alternative solutions, such as donating, to manage surplus food. This project breaks new ground by not only working to identify and address the barriers faced and prioritized by frontline workers, but also by centering the workers themselves to create responsive strategies.

Agroecology is the future of Puerto Rican agriculture

Molly DelCarmen Anderson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

First paragraph:

The documentary film Serán las dueñas de la tierra (Stewards of the Land) depicts a struggle that everyone in the U.S. should know about: not just to understand how difficult growing healthy food is, but also to see the consequences of colonialism on our unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico and its corrupt land allocation practices. The film follows three landless farmers in Puerto Rico as they try to obtain and keep farmland. Puerto Rico imports 85% of its food, and one-third of the population is food insecure. Yet it has large amounts of prime, fertile farmland, water, and sun; under other circumstances, it could be feeding all of its people well and exporting produce. Hurricanes have wreaked havoc on its farms over the past eight years (especially Irma and María in 2017), but better preparation and infrastructure might help farmers to retain more of their crops. . . .

Sustainable Diets Brief: Produce prescription programs

Sara Shostak, Jolie Black, Stacey Daley — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

First paragraph:

How Do Produce Prescription Programs Work?

Produce prescription programs (PPPs) are an innovative strategy for improving healthy food access in order to prevent or treat diet-related illness. Healthcare providers identify patients based on factors such as food insecurity, income, and diet-related health conditions, and then provide “prescriptions” for healthy food, such as vouchers, tokens, or coupons for free or subsidized fresh produce that can be used at grocery stores, farmers markets, or local farms. Many programs also provide nutrition education, recipes, and guidance on food preparation and storage. . . .

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See more about the JAFSCD Sustainable Diets Editorial Circle and the open call for briefs.

Revaluing waste: Care, recirculation, and food politics in Truffles and Trash

Sofia Francisco — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

First paragraphs:

Kelly Alexander’s Truffles and Trash: Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State traces the movement of edible but discarded food through Brussels’ expanding network of food-recirculation initiatives. The book enters a global conversation on food waste intensified by the 2011 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report estimating that one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Rather than framing waste as the individual consumer’s responsibility, Alexander situates it within the structural logics of capitalist food systems. As she explains, “This project is about innovative and creative ways to recirculate discarded food before it becomes food waste, and to do that as a way of caring for other people and for the planet” (p. 41, emphasis in original).

Alexander—an anthropologist and food studies scholar—entered the project curious about how certain foods, especially truffles, acquire extraordinary value—or are overvalued. Her apprenticeship at La Truffe Noire, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Brussels built around one of the world’s most expensive ingredients, quickly confronted her with a different reality: the sheer volume of edible food routinely discarded. “I felt ill peering into that bin every day, seeing so much good-looking food go uneaten” (p. 12). That encounter became a pivotal moment, shifting her focus from why some foods are prized to how food gains and loses value along a spectrum of edibility. What began as a fixation on waste in one high-end kitchen broadened into a study of food waste across Brussels, exploring how surplus is produced, judged, and redistributed. . . .