Duration: 10/01/2002 to 09/30/2008

Administrative Advisor(s):

NIFA Reps:

Non-Technical Summary

Statement of Issues and Justification

The need as indicated by stakeholders

As American agriculture turns down the path of a new century, farmers, as mutually supporting, yet independent, and self-reliant members of 20th century rural communities are rapidly disappearing from the rural landscape. Farmers, who were once the backbone of the agricultural economy, have been reduced to mere cogs in a well-oiled agribusiness machine. Relatively little of the value added in agriculture accrues to farmers for the agricultural commodities they produce. Instead, it is being captured by corporately controlled and integrated sectors of the food system that bracket producers with high priced inputs on one side and tightly managed production contracts and marketing schemes on the other. Independent food production for sale on the open market is giving way to vertically coordinated value chains that articulate large-scale farm corporations through production contracts. As the number of small and medium scale farms continues to decline, rural communities throughout the U.S. are facing uncertain futures.

We popularly assume that a global food system provides both food opportunities (e.g. coffee and bananas) and food security (consistent supply) through the efficient trade of food products. However, large scale crises such as international embargos, bioterrorism, and war have required many countries, including the U.S. during World War II, to rely on their regional, local, and even household-scale agricultural resources for sustenance. Global interdependence of the current scale is unprecedented. Moreover, global trade introduces diseases and pests which undermine food system stability and resilience. Smaller and more localized scale crises such as factory closings, a drop in wholesale commodity prices, or a familys loss of medical benefits place increased demands on emergency food services (soup kitchens, food banks) and subsistence production (gleaning, public and backyard gardens). Therefore, while a global food system provides advantages that we take for granted, the model also poses economic and food security vulnerabilities to individuals, communities, and nations alike. Sustaining the environmental land base, production diversity, and capacity of skills in the food system to grow, harvest, process, and consume has historically increased the flexibility with which communities respond and adapt to changes in political economies outside their direct control.

In the wake of increasing corporate control and the corresponding vulnerabilities in the food system, an alternative agricultural paradigm has emerged to challenge the wisdom of conventional production agriculture on a global scale. Some growers, processors, distributors and retailers are seeking to re-localize production through a diversity of strategies. One strategy is direct marketing of local products to households, stores, restaurants, and institutions. Another is linking value-adding components of food production at the local level. These kinds of agriculture and food endeavors are engines of local economic development, fostering a greater community capacity for entrepreneurship, business development, and cooperation for mutual benefit. Socially, food system activities that are smaller in scale and more localized increase the opportunities for individuals and families to participate in shaping the food system they depend upon. They also provide spaces for community interaction and cultural expression. Also, by strengthening or maintaining local agriculture, these initiatives enhance the aesthetic and environmental aspects of rural landscapes.

Communities can provide alternatives to the global food system by developing economic and social infrastructure, instituting policies for maintaining a farmland base, and providing technical expertise to farmers, processors, distributors, and retailers. This kind of integrated strategy is necessary to compete against or co-exist with the highly industrialized corporate food system. Many communities have begun to meet the challenge of re-localizing parts of their food systems. There is accumulating evidence that fostering a local agriculture sector that serves community needs (a more civic agriculture) has reaped many social as well economic benefits for communities (Lyson, 2000). What is not well known, however, is how to sustain these local food systems in a globalizing environment.

In this project, we propose several interrelated objectives for examining ways to sustaining local agriculture and food systems in a globalizing environment. We will examine the policies, projects and events that are transforming local food systems. We shall explore the ways local communities are responding to the forces of globalization and look at the diverse contributions of local food systems to the community. Throughout the project, we will collaborate with food system stakeholders to identify high priority information needs. The goal of this project is to increase systematic knowledge of how communities can generate, support, and benefit from more localized food systems.

Justification

The importance of the work, and what the consequences are if it is not done:

Industrialization, the motor behind production agriculture for nearly a century, has proceeded unevenly, but relatively unabated from the 1920s through today, propelled by mechanization, the increased use of chemicals (i.e., synthetic fertilizers and pesticides), and most recently, advanced biotechnologies. Over the past 50 years, farms have become larger in size and fewer in number. Land is being used more intensively and yields per acre have increased dramatically. The amount of farmland has decreased, while mean capital investments on each farm have increased. At the same time, farms have been woven into ever tighter and even more limited, and less free, marketing channels.

After World War II, the contours of a truly global food system began to emerge as nationally organized food corporations grew in size. Beginning in the 1980s, a wave of mergers resulted in a tremendous consolidation of power in the food sector (Heffernan 1999). The large multinational food corporations that came out of these mergers have increasingly become the locus of control for organizing and coordinating the production, processing and distribution of food.

Today, the sheer size of the multinational food giants has important consequences for farmers and their farms. As Hart (1992: 176) reflects,

Size brings economic power and this is particularly significant when set against the structure of the farming industry with its large number of relatively small producers. Some of the most dramatic recent changes in agricultural marketing reflect the power of these new markets to extract their requirements from the farming industry.

Large processors and retailers centralize their purchases of farm products. They seek large quantities of standardized and uniform products and they have considerable power in dictating how and where agricultural production takes place.

Drabenstott (1999) estimates that ....40 or fewer chains will control nearly all U.S. pork production in a matter of a few years, and that these chains will engage a mere fraction [italics added] of the 100,000 hog farms now scattered across the nation. In a similar vein, the CEO of Dairy Farms of America (the U.S.s largest dairy cooperative) Gary Hanman, recently noted that We would need only 7,468 farms [out of over 100,000 today] with 1,000 cows if they produced 20,857 pounds of milk which is the average of the top four milk producing states (Northeast Dairy Business, 1999: 11). The consequences are clear, ...supply chains will locate in relatively few rural communities. And with fewer farmers and fewer suppliers where they do locate, the economic impact will be different from the commodity agriculture of the past (Drabenstott 1999).

For farmers in the U.S. and elsewhere, the globalization of the food system means that a much smaller number of producers will articulate with a small number of processors in a highly integrated system. Similarly, food retailing has been undergoing the kind of concentration through vertical coordination seen in the processing sector, squeezing out local grocery store owners much like it has independent farmers (Guptill and Wilkins forthcoming; Hendrickson et al 2001).

As the agriculture and food system becomes more concentrated, it also becomes more vulnerable to disruptions and prone to accidents (Perrow, 1999). There are no perfect systems. The consequences of an accident or disruption are magnified in direct proportion to the size of the system. A production system organized around smaller units (i.e., family-size farms) is more resilient than a system organized around larger units. Accidents in systems with smaller units are easier to contain. This was illustrated quite dramatically in the 1970s when a toxic fire retardant, PBB, was inadvertently mixed into some bags of dairy feed in Michigan and distributed around the state. The result was that some dairy herds in the state ended up with large amounts of PBB in their milk, while others had none. When the milk was pooled, the level of PBBs was detectable throughout the food system, but at low enough levels that it was not lethal to the general public. However, if the structure of dairy farming in Michigan looked like California or Arizona, where a few very large producers account for almost all of the milk produced, the consequences of mixing a toxic substance into animal feed could have been much worse for both farmers and consumers (see Busch and Lacy, 1984; also http://www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/PBBlate.htm).

Further disconnecting food production from consumption by globally sourcing food could lead to other problems. Steven C. Blank, the author of The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio (1998), argues that agriculture has offered minimal returns on investment (1.5%) for the last few decades, and as a result, its concentration and decline in the U.S. is likely to continue. Because of the squeeze between rising production costs in the U.S. and stagnant or declining prices on the global market, farmers must choose between price strategies (value-added, integration with processing) or cost strategies (reducing unit cost by increasing scale) to stay profitable. Despite the productivity and efficiency of American agriculture, the U.S. is no longer a low-cost producer. Food corporations will increasingly rely on cheaper producers elsewhere in the world. In short, Blank concludes, agriculture is becoming a smaller and smaller part of the U.S. economic portfolio.

Most researchers agree with Blank that the decline in American agriculture will continue without some intervention. However, some scholars, such as economist John Ikerd, have critiqued Blanks conclusion. In a series of paper presentations, Ikerd (2001a) argues that Blanks concepts of profit and opportunity cost do not apply in the same way to diversified, sustainable, family-scale farms, which take quality of life issues, ecological stewardship, and community life into account when making farming decisions. Ikerd (2001b) heralds the emergence of the New American Farm and predicts that a new generation of family farmers will replace the old industrial farming model with one based on principles of sustainability, diversity of crops and markets, quality over quantity, and community in the food system. Lyson (2000) terms this kind of approach civic agriculture, because it nests production in the local community.

A number of organizational forms have emerged or reemerged in recent decades that express the civic agriculture model. Farmers markets provide space for direct contact between local growers and shoppers and are an effective first step for communities seeking to develop a marketing outlet to promote stronger local food systems. Community and school gardens provide fresh produce to currently underserved populations, teach food production skills, and enhance community life. Organic farmers have pioneered the development of local marketing systems, and have also eschewed conventional, chemically intensive farming practices for those that focus on the long-term health of the soil. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects are forging direct links between consumer-members (often urban) and farm operations, giving growers guaranteed markets and members new connection to their food source. New generation grower﷓controlled marketing cooperatives are emerging to more effectively tap regional markets and pursue value-added activities. Agricultural districts organized around particular high-value commodities (such as wine) have served to stabilize farms and farmland in many areas of the U.S. Community kitchens provide the infrastructure and technical expertise necessary to launch new food-based enterprises. Specialty producers and on﷓farm processors offer products for smaller niche markets (deer, goat/sheep cheese, free-range chickens, organic dairy products, etc.). Small scale, off﷓farm, local processors add value in local communities and provide markets for 'civic agriculture' farmers. Emerging are efforts to link institutional markets in schools, hospitals, and prisons with small and medium scale producers. Efforts like these have the potential to nurture local economic development, enhance the working landscape, maintain diversity and quality in products, and provide linkages among producers, consumers and other food system stakeholders.

Despite the compelling case for more vibrant local food systems, contemporary efforts suffer from a lack of systematic knowledge on the forces affecting local communities, local responses to these forces, and the outcomes of those efforts. Without that knowledge, people and organizations engaged in local food system alternatives waste valuable resources in encountering preventable pitfalls. In this research we ask: How are trends towards globalization in agriculture expressed on the local level? How can local stakeholders effectively create stronger local food systems that serve community needs?

The technical feasibility of the research and the advantages for doing the work as a multi-state effort:

This research will require secondary and primary data gathered through qualitative and quantitative methods. Secondary data on agricultural, food system, and community structures at the county level are available from various sources. Census of Agriculture and Census of Population data are available at the county level in machine-readable form. Other federal and state level data sets, including the Economic Census and the Census of Governments, will also serve our efforts. Key informant interviews and random sample surveys will also be used to collect in-depth primary data about communities and their local food system initiatives.

This multi-state effort will compare localities across at least 12 states. Multi-state participation is important, because state and local variations are related to agricultural and food system vitality. Through a coordinated series of case studies we will be able to sample this regional variety more accurately, which will allow for greater generalization of findings at the conclusion of the research. Policies that affect local food systems operate across a variety of scaleslocal, state and national. Only through a comparative, multi-state research design can we assess how these nested, and sometimes conflicting, policies affect the sustainability of locally-oriented food system efforts.

Members of the research group have extensive experience in conducting research using both secondary and primary data. In addition, researchers represent a variety of disciplines, including rural sociology, nutrition and food sciences, consumer science, agricultural economics, agricultural communications, and plant science. Many project participants collaborated in Regional Research Project NE-185 and found the cross-state and cross-disciplinary collaborations to be instrumental in the success of the project.

This multi-state project will also provide the basis for undertaking state specific AES research and for developing new funded programs around specific objectives of the project. To carry out this project, participants will submit grant proposals to NRI (National Research Initiative), NSF (National Science Foundation), SARE (Sustainable Agriculture, Research, and Education) and other grant-making institutions.

What the likely impacts will be from successfully completing the work:

We expect that this research will result in increased knowledge and understanding about the forces that motivate and shape the formation of local food systems. We will investigate the problems that they are designed to address, how they are created and sustained, and the impact they have on the community level. This information will provide the basis for educating academics, citizens and stakeholder groups about some of the alternative strategies available in a globalizing economy to strengthen local food systems and how these strategies can best be supported. People and organizations will learn new ways to visualize and create community-based food systems.

More specifically, this project will:

(1) increase research knowledge from which to understand potential or ongoing change in the food system;

(2) create a starting framework for food system strategizing to improve food system sustainability;

(3) make policy recommendations for improving food system sustainability;

(4) promote better understanding among community leaders, educators, and other professionals of ways to engage with the food system to meet community goals and to build the capacity for a more stable food system infrastructure;

(5) promote more informed public discourse about the nature and impacts of different kinds of food systems;

(6) create new knowledge about intervention strategies to improve community environmental, economic and social health and to increase engagement in the food system; and,

(7) promote the expansion of existing markets and the creation of new markets and other outlets for locally produced food products.

Related, Current and Previous Work

In this project we ask three key questions. What do current trends in the global food system mean for local stakeholders? How have localities responded to these trends? What are the outcomes of those responses? The project will combine Blanks (1998) and Drabenstotts (1999) concerns about large-scale trends with Ikerds (2001a and 2001b) and Lysons (2000) emphases on emerging alternatives and the importance of place. While several current and recent projects have addressed issues of concern to this proposed project, none have integrated analyses of food system trends, responses, and outcomes from the perspective of diverse localities.

The first category of related research is comprised of recent work on assessing the forces that are rapidly transforming the U.S. food system, with a primary focus on impacts on the farm sector. Heffernan (1999) and Hendrickson et al (2001) have described the accelerating concentration of food processing and food retailing and the implications of these trends for family-sized farmers. Similarly, in New York a project led by McMichael (1996) examines the regional and global institutional forces shaping the structure and trends of U.S. farming.

One Regional Research Project (S-287) entitled The Impact of Trade Agreements and Economic Policies on Southern Agriculture, seeks to determine the economic consequences of trade impacts stemming from changes in domestic agricultural and economic policies and to assess alternative strategies to improve the competitiveness of Southern agriculture. That project will yield a region-wide analysis of the issues and prospects facing southern agriculture under current economic policies. Work has been completed analyzing and forecasting the demand for certain commodities (rice, peanuts, fruits and vegetables, etc.) and an edited volume has been published entitled Competition in Agriculture: The United States in the World Market (Colyer et al, 2000). Researchers in the project have also analyzed demand for particular commodities in emerging export markets (such as China) and compared different policy scenarios and their impact on southern agriculture. Similar regional and state-level projects are being undertaken in New Mexico (Harper 1998), New England (Lee 1998), Ohio (Tweeten 1996), Arizona (Thompson et al, 1996), and Kansas (Barkley et al, 1997).

In addition to issues of trade and policy, a number of studies look at the impact of technology and consumer attitudes on the structure and performance of the food system. Hoban (1997) is examining consumer acceptance of biotechnology, public attitudes towards the agricultural sector, and the practices that leading companies use to develop and market new food products. Another regional project (NE-165), Private Strategies, Public Policies, and Food System Performance, is looking at how consumer behavior, new technologies, and producer strategies influence the economic performance of the food system in terms of food safety and other quality measures.

A recently completed regional project (S-246), entitled The Transformation of Agriculture: Resources, Technologies, and Policies sought to combine issues of trade and technology in its examination of the effect of agricultural restructuring on farms, farm families, communities, and society. Similarly, the Food Systems Research Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has a sustained program of research examining the impact of technologies, size economies, and government regulation on the organization and performance of the food system in terms of firm behavior and market organization.

A second category of related work is that which has examined innovative responses on the part of producers and other food system stakeholders to major destabilizing trends. For example, a USDA funded project based led by Ikerd and Benjamin (1998) in Missouri, sought to identify and document objectives, enterprises, methods, successes and challenges of farmers and to collect and publish a wide diversity of sustainable agriculture case studies. A Hatch-funded project in Missouri (Heffernan 1994) is examining alternatives to the global food system by identifying areas of food production, processing, and marketing in which smaller organizations have the highest probability of success.

Another regional research project (S-279) seeks to document social and economic change in agriculture and natural resource systems under globalization; the strategies used by individuals, families, farms, and communities in responding to globalization; and the role of federal, state, and local policies in ameliorating or amplifying the effects of globalization. In this project, globalization is understood mostly in terms of the emergence of global commodity markets and regional free trade zones such as NAFTA. Local responses to globalization examined in this project include direct marketing, rural networking, rural immigration, lobbying for favorable regulation, and producing for quality niche markets. Although linking global trends to local responses speaks to the concerns of the project proposed here, S-279 focuses on agriculture rather than the food system, and thus excludes food processing, food retailing, and other food entrepreneurship from the analysis.

Another type of food system assessment is under way in NY (Peters, et al forthcoming) where researchers conducted a comparison of vegetable production to consumption and the U.S. Dietary Guidelines (USDA/HHS, 2000a) within the context of one state. This New York study is part of a larger investigation of gaps between agricultural production, consumption, and dietary guidelines for each of the USDA Food Guide Pyramid food groups (USDA/HHS, 2000b). This type of analysis will show the extent to which NY State meets its own nutritional needs in terms of fruits and vegetables.

The Northeast Regional Project (NE-185), Consumers, Commodities, and Communities: Local Food Systems in a Globalizing Environment, which will end this coming year, focused specifically on localities and developed a protocol to describe and assess local food systems on the country level using both primary and secondary indicators. The project also studied how the consumers relationship to the food system is influenced by food retailing (Guptill and Wilkins forthcoming), local planning (Abel 2000), economic and non-economic aspects of direct agricultural markets (Hinrichs 2000), and diverse strategies to change the food system (Stevenson et al 2000). The tools for documenting and assessing local food systems developed in the NE-185 project will be used by the project proposed here to analyze food system trends and strategies for strengthening local food systems.

One focused and multidimensional examination of ways to sustain small-scale farming is occurring in Washington State where an NRI-funded project (Jussaume and Schotzko 2000) is examining the actual and potential role of small farms in promoting viable local food systems. The project is mapping the food systems of three counties in the state, focusing on the interactions among small and large﷓scale producers, distributors, retailers, restaurateurs, and consumers in each locality to assess the potential scope and impact of a more localized food system. Although limited to Washington State, the project demonstrates the analytical power of research that is based in localities.

A final category of related work includes projects that examine the outcomes of strategies to create or manage change in the food system. A current project in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho (Carkner et al 2000) seeks to evaluate and improve direct marketing systems for small farmers, such as farmers markets, CSAs, on-farm sales, and direct sales to retail establishments. A South Dakota Project (Van der Sluis 1997) is examining the social and economic factors associated with success in value-added enterprises with an emphasis on producer cooperatives. In Massachusetts (Mangan et al 2000), researchers are addressing the changing demographics in urban areas and working with farmers to identify and grow crops used by members of growing Latino and Asian populations. These three projects seek to distinguish successful from unsuccessful strategies, but they do not address the actual impacts of such strategies on localities and their community and regional stakeholders.

One new regional project (NC-1001) does have a community focus in its examination of the community health outcomes of different agricultural and food systems. Through secondary and primary data, project participants will (1) determine the consequences of agriculture and food systems on the health of distinct populations, (2) determine the impact community problem-solving around food issues has on population health, (3) determine the relationships among collective action, agriculture and food systems, and population health, and (4) determine the relationships between the scale of the food system and population and landscape health. An NRI-funded conference (Morton 2000) enabled a group of researchers to formulate this research agenda. This project will yield rich findings about health outcomes but will not address other concerns of how food systems can enhance ecological richness and community life.

A recently completed Hatch-funded project in New York (Gillespie et al 1996) has more broadly examined and compared the economic and geographic spaces occupied by large-scale, globally-oriented agricultural producers and smaller-scale, community-integrated agricultural entrepreneurs and assessed the community well-being associated with these types of agricultural systems. That project was confined to New York State and focused on producers in the food system, while the proposed project will assess the structure of characteristics of the food system more broadly and will also yield opportunities for comparative analysis through multi-state participation which will enable participants to draw more systematic conclusions about change in the food system.

Overall, while there are many recent and ongoing projects seeking to identify and analyze major forces in the food system, their consequences, and local responses. However, projects that examine forces, responses, and outcomes from the perspective of particular localities in the integrated and comparative fashion proposed here are lacking. Many case studies speak to the concerns of this project, but a coordinated multi-state research project using a diversity of localities to yield generalizable findings about how food system stakeholders can enhance the capacity of the local food system to improve community well-being does not yet exist. In order to examine the multidimensionality of local food systems, we propose the following four research objectives.

Objectives

1. Collaborate with local food system stakeholders to identify high priority information needs and the forms in which information should be shared.
   
2. Identify and analyze ongoing and potential forces that are maintaining or transforming the relationships between localities and their food systems.
   
3. Examine the diverse strategies local food system stakeholders are currently using or might use to create and manage ongoing or potential change in the food system.
   
4. Document and assess the key economic, environmental, and social impacts of current or potential efforts to create and manage change in the food system.
   
5. 
   

Methods

Unifying Methodologies One of the principal motivations of this project is to continue and redirect the work performed under Regional Research Project NE-185 (discussed above). One objective of that project was to develop and apply a protocol for documenting and assessing local food systems with available secondary indicators, supplemented with selected primary data. Most participants chose the county as the unit of analysis, primarily because of the availability and comparability of county-level data. The strategy of grounding research in communities proved to be a fruitful one, as different localities exhibit distinct blends of trends and forces affecting the U.S. food system. The descriptive work performed in NE-185 revealed some of the complexity and variation associated with these trends. The other major theme of the project  looking at the forces that mediate consumers relationship with the food system  was less grounded in place, but it revealed that close studies of particular aspects of the food system can be combined to yield a more in-depth and actionable understanding of the food system. This project shifts our focus from description to analysis through a methodology focused on comparative case studies. Several project participants will continue work in the counties examined under NE-185. All individuals and teams from each participating state will select three localities at different points along the urban-rural continuum. These units of analysis will range from neighborhoods to multi-county regions, depending on local contexts. Because the availability of historical and secondary data varies by locality, work in different states will diverge somewhat in terms of the information used. In all cases, however, teams will collect, analyze, and synthesize quantitative and qualitative indicators, both historical and contemporary, with an explicit focus on how localities experience, respond to, and shape major trends or unexpected events in the food system. We will compare findings using the method of incorporated comparison (McMichael 1990). In this method, individual cases are not assumed to be autonomous and unrelated to one another. Rather, this kind of analysis assumes that the diverse localities we study are all part of an interconnected global food system. Distinct outcomes in different places often represent multiple facets of the same general process. For example, the increasing industrialization of dairy in the Midwest is related to the growth of small-scale retail-oriented farms in the periurban areas of the Northeast, because small and medium sized dairy farmers in New England are forced to cease farming or engage new and more direct markets given the increasing price competition from the Midwest. Through our comparative case studies, we will construct a multidimensional portrait of change in the food system and draw out actionable conclusions about how local stakeholders can engage with current trends or respond to unexpected circumstances to strengthen local food systems. Throughout the project, each state team will solicit and respond to ideas and suggestions of local food system stakeholders as they design specific research protocols and products to communicate research results. This process will maximize the extent to which our work can benefit projects that seek to shape the food system to promote more positive community outcomes. Specific Methodologies for Each Objective Objective 1: Collaborate with food system stakeholders to identify high priority information needs and the forms in which information should be shared. Under this objective, participating states will solicit suggestions from local food system stakeholders through interviews and/or focus groups. In identifying and recruiting these collaborators, teams will focus on individuals and organizations that are already engaged in efforts to shape the food system to promote community well-being (what Lyson terms civic agriculture) (Lyson, 2000). In other words, while everyone is a stakeholder in the food system by virtue of being an eater, not everyone will be considered stakeholders of this project. The collaborators we recruit will be asked to reflect on which areas of the local and non-local food systems would be the most useful for multidisciplinary research. The technical committee will share and discuss the results of this process, and modify research protocols to reflect this input. The committee will seek to preserve the capacity for inter- and intra-state comparison while incorporating the suggestions of collaborators. Stakeholders will also be asked to help think creatively about how to communicate the results of our work to the general public. In addition to products for academic audiences, we will also create materials for the general public and especially for the communities in which we work. Objective 2: Identify and analyze ongoing and potential forces that are maintaining or transforming the relationships between localities and their food systems. Project participants will employ a historical methodology to assess the major forces that are causing, shaping, or impeding change in the food system over a 30-year period: 1975 to 2005. The first step will be to assemble available secondary indicators and archival resources that provide a sketch of major shifts and trends among food system actors: farmers, processors, distributors, retailers, consumers, lenders, activists, educators, policy-makers, and institutions. When available, local food system data collected under NE-185 will be used. Those county profiles include indicators on demographics, the agricultural landscape, the food distribution network, economic productivity of the food sector, food system wages and employment, food consumption, community food security, and food education opportunities. Next, primary data will be gathered from publications, key informants, participant or non-participant observations, and shared history processes. Key informants will be asked to reflect on both historical trends as well as future, unexpected events that may affect the vulnerability of their food system. Finally, these data will be analyzed to identify and explain the trends, shifts, events, policies, and projects that shape how local people experience the food system. At the national level, many of these forces are well understood in the academic and popular literature. In short, the oil crisis of the mid-1970s marked the end of U.S. agricultural expansion. Increasing commodity production elsewhere in the world drove down global agricultural prices, and American farmers became caught in a squeeze between low prices and high costs for inputs and debt service. While food corporations continuously expanded their lines of highly processed convenience foods, consumer interest in natural and organic foods has emerged and grown steadily. As family-size farms continue to fail at an alarming rate, the U.S. farm sector is approaching a bimodal distribution with a small number of mega-farms producing a narrow range of commodities contrasted with the vigorous growth in number of smaller-scale producers who seek more direct markets that for high-quality products. On a related front, the events of September 11th have raised awareness about the vulnerability of the nations infrastructure and potentially, the food distribution system. Corporate controlled, industrial-scale agriculture and small/medium-scale producers with more direct, local markets alike may be impacted differently by unexpected, catastrophic events. On the local level, however, these macro-level trends play out in different ways. For one, the farm crisis has affected regions, states, and localities unequally. Emerging alternatives are distributed unevenly across space. Some places are seeing an expansion of food choices, while others are seeing a narrowing range of available foods. By constructing more nuanced accounts of how localities have experienced major food system trends in the last 30 years, including how they view the vulnerability of their food system in light of potential events in the future, we will be able to carry out a systematic analysis using McMichaels (1990) incorporated comparison framework. Our analysis will reveal the complex and contradictory forces at work in the U.S. agricultural and food system as a whole. The historical analysis that project participants perform will be based on the following three focal areas: (1) Trends and shifts: Secondary data is a productive starting point to identify prominent trends in the local food system. Of interest to this project are the changing numbers and types of food system actors (both conventional and alternative), shifting values in the harvest and sale of products, demographic trends, economic trends such as deindustrialization, and changing land uses. (2) Events and turning points: After identifying continuous trends and discontinuous ruptures, participants will examine secondary and primary data for events and turning points that explain these phenomena. Events like factory closings or openings, sudden spikes or drops in land prices, or droughts or floods may help explain trends and shifts observed in secondary data for a particular locality. Participants will also reflect on how sudden, unexpected future events might become turning points and how food system stakeholders could respond to these changes. (3) Federal, state, and local policies: We will also examine trends and shifts in terms of the impact of key public policies concerning agriculture, food and fiber processing, food security, food system infrastructures and land use or farmland protection. Also of interest are policies that affect the agri-food system even if focused on other economic sectors such as industrial, housing, or tourism development. Objective 3: Examine the diverse strategies local food system stakeholders are currently using or might use to create and manage ongoing or potential change in the food system. This objective will be met through a case-study approach that combines a variety of indicators into a synthetic account of the strategies people have used to respond to major ongoing changes in the local food system and those they would expect to rise in the event of unforeseen changes. The goal of this part of the project is to classify and analyze the diversity of community responses to the major trends identified in objective 2. How have community actors sought to ameliorate problems or seize opportunities created by ongoing trends and the potential for disruptions in the food system? The data collected under this objective will most often be primary and will be gathered through interviews, surveys, focus groups, observation, and document analysis. Although data collection protocols will have to be tailored to each case being studied, participating researchers will focus on a common set of overarching questions: (1) How did these particular food system initiatives begin? (2) On what kind of vision is each based? How do participants envision goals for the local economy, landscape, and community? (3) What resources were needed to begin and sustain each effort? (4) How have projects forged connections among different actors in the food system? (5) At what geographic scale do these projects operate? (6) How have these projects engaged with market institutions and forces? (7) How have these projects engaged with public policy and other non-market forces? (8) What are the major challenges people and organizations have faced as they attempted to create and sustain this particular strategy? (9) What has increased community confidence in the food system? (10) What have been the most fruitful opportunities encountered in efforts to increase food security in the local food system? (11) How do participants in the initiative see the impact of their efforts? Members of the technical committee will share draft protocols to ensure that these questions will be addressed in each state to maximize the opportunity for systematic comparisons. Addressing these research questions should provide insights on the complex relationships between local food systems, global food system, and how they can and might adapt to ongoing and unexpected circumstances. A comparative analysis of these projects, nested in their local context will reveal much about the types of strategies at work in diverse localities and the broad range of actors engaged in local food systems efforts. In many places the large number of farm-based and community-based initiatives will require that researchers draw a purposive sample for closer study. The selection of cases will reflect stakeholder suggestions for research foci gathered in objective 1, results of the historical analysis performed under objective 2 (selecting more consequential cases), and opportunities for intra-state and cross-state comparisons. The major themes that will guide analysis will emerge from the results of the case studies. However, based on the familiarity that participating researchers already have with local food system projects in their states, we anticipate that emerging themes will include (1) the creation of new value chains in the food systems, (2) the creation of new relationships between producers and consumers through production standards and labeling, (3) the diversity of impacts farming has in a locality (the multi-functionality of agriculture), and (4) consideration of policies and projects that promote local food security in light of ongoing and unforeseen changes in the food system. The technical committee will identify major axes of comparisons and form subgroups to perform incorporated comparisons of their research results of particular efforts. In this analysis, the local context of these initiatives is as important to the comparison as the characteristics of the projects themselves. Objective 4: Document and assess the key economic, environmental, and social impacts of current or potential efforts to create and manage change in the food system. In meeting this objective, researchers will begin from an assessment of the goals of case study projects and the impacts that participants perceive their efforts have had. Researchers will then look for other direct and indirect impacts in the local, regional, and even national levels. On the local and regional level, researchers will examine the impacts of projects on: (1) The economy: Researchers will conduct a basic assessment of the interactive impacts of local projects on the agricultural and non-agricultural economy. Some of the outcomes we expect to see include: the improved value of producers sales, (e.g., from the presence of value-added activities), creation of new jobs, greater diversity of marketing opportunities for producers, and enhanced local food security (e.g., from increased retail choices for consumers from local producers). (2) The landscape: Researchers will look for the impact of these activities on the preservation of farmland and other agricultural resources, the maintenance of soil and water resources, promotion of biodiversity, and creation of opportunities for non-growers to gain greater awareness of their ecological context. (3) Community life and well-being: Farmers markets and other initiatives to be examined here provide spaces for community members to interact and celebrate the local harvest. The processes involved in planning initiatives, policies, and other efforts also increases the capacity of community members to cooperate and consider inequities in the food system and how ongoing and potential changes might further distort food security in the local context. Under this objective, researchers will assess civic engagement taking place through local initiatives to address the general good as well as new opportunities for people to more effectively pursue their own nutritional health and well-being. While it is unlikely that any particular project that we examine will have an demonstrable impact on the national level, we will look for evidence of the collective impact of these initiatives and others like them on the U.S. food system as a whole. Organic agriculture in the U.S., for example, began as a scattered set of small farms organized into regional associations and served by organizations like the Rodale Institute. Currently, organic products are a rapidly growing sector worldwide that has changed the way conventional institutions like land-grant universities and multinational food corporations define and execute their missions. We expect a similar bottom-up process to occur from the proliferation of community-oriented food-related projects. Because of the importance of context to this project, much of the data used in this assessment will be gathered under objectives 2 and 3. Additional fieldwork may be undertaken to further assess the multiple and interacting impacts of these projects.

Measurement of Progress and Results

Outputs

• Journal articles, extension publications, popular press articles, and book chapters. Most of these publications will communicate the results of our comparative analysis.
• Integrated analyses of current trends in the food system, the types of strategies local communities are using in response, and the outcome of those strategies on local, regional, and national levels.
• Contribute precise and careful analyses based on an in-depth yet wide-ranging set of data to academic, policy, and popular debates. Topics will include specific strategies (e.g. what makes a farmers' market successful), specific themes (e.g. the impacts of local agriculture on the local economy), place-based assessments (e.g. local food initiatives in deindustrializing regions), and "big-picture" analyses of the multi-faceted national food system (e.g. prospects for locally oriented food retailing under current trends).
• Communicate results to general audiences with guidance from stakeholders solicited under objective 1.
• Our work will form the basis of a variety of events like workshops, seminars, and forums that will be offered for extension audiences, food and agricultural professionals, community stakeholders and organizations and policy makers.

Outcomes or Projected Impacts

• Increased research knowledge about changes in the food system that will support policy recommendations and food system strategizing in response to ongoing trends and potential events.
• Better understanding among community leaders, educators, and other professionals about ways to engage with the food system to meet goals of community well-being and vitality.
• More informed public discourse about the characteristics and impacts of different kinds of food systems through increased agriculture and food system literacy.
• New knowledge about intervention strategies to improve community environmental, economic, and social health and to increase local food security and popular engagement in the food system.
• New markets and other outlets for locally produced food products and expansion of existing markets.

Milestones

(0): Organize the technical committee, gather input under objective 1, share results from objective 1 across states, develop specific research protocols, and develop proposals for additional funding.

(0): Begin data collection for objectives 2 and 3 and continue to pursue additional funding.

(0):-4: Complete data collection for objectives 2 and 3, begin analysis for objective 4, form subgroups for comparative analyses, interpret data with input from community stakeholders, and begin outreach and extension activities.

(0):-5: Synthesize results across objectives, complete comparative analyses, draft publications, conduct additional outreach activities, and identify next steps.

(0):0

Projected Participation

View Appendix E: Participation

Outreach Plan

For this project, outreach will involve a continuous process of interaction with local stakeholders in identifying relevant focus areas and effective ways to communicate the results of our work. As a result of stakeholder involvement in the research process, stakeholders will have some ownership of the results and will use them to guide their own strategies to address ongoing and potential changes in the food system. Specific efforts will be undertaken to share our research findings with the public at large, food and agriculture policy makers, and food and agriculture educators at local and state levels.

This project will develop a series of workshops and interactive forums in the context of established national meetings of academic and non-profit groups. Within the study communities, information will be shared in local forums. In addition, results will be summarized in publications like extension bulletins and mass media to increase awareness, understanding, and creative food system efforts to pursue opportunities for positive change.

Organization/Governance

In the first meeting of the project the technical committee will elect a chair, vice-chair, and secretary. The chair will be responsible for drafting meeting agendas, communicating with the project advisor, and writing and submitting the annual report. The vice-chair will be in charge of meeting arrangements while the secretary will take minutes of meetings. In the second year of the project, the chair will step down, the vice-chair will become chair, the secretary will become vice-chair, and a new secretary will be elected. This process will repeat in the third, fourth, and fifth years of the project. The annual meeting will take place in the fall at varying locations.

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Attachments

Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

CA, KS, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NH, NY, OR, PA, PR, TX, VT, WA, WI, WV

Non Land Grant Participating States/Institutions