Christy Anderson Brekken

There is an expanding interest in Local Food Systems (LFSs) in Vermont, along with a growing effort to create adaptive governance to facilitate action. In this case study, we investigate how adaptive governance of LFS can provide ideas and act as a catalyst for creating resilience in other social-ecological systems (SESs). By participating in meetings and interviewing stakeholders inside and outside the Vermont LFS network, we found that consumers were highly motivated to participate by supporting environmental issues, the local economy, and interactive communities, as well as building social relationships. Farmers experienced better income and increased respect in the local community. All participants found adequate “safe space” to share new ideas and explore partnerships. Their identities and values were also place-specific, reflecting the working landscape of Vermont. Adaptive governance was built on equal partnerships, where problems were discussed and responsibilities were shared among many stakeholders across geographic areas and multiple sectors. Some skepticism was expressed towards mainstreaming local food production and sales. Challenges remain to more fully include farmers, for-profit players, and low-income consumers in the network. This might limit the resilience and sustainability of the LFS. Because SESs are held together by common culture and identities, the risk of non-adaptive social patterns exemplifies one key challenge for future adaptive management towards resilient and sustainable outcomes. There is a critical need for developing relevant theory and conducting further research on LFSs and their potential roles in local SESs.

JAFSCD: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Publication of the Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems

The sustainability of the food system is at the forefront of academic and policy discussions as we face the challenge of providing food security to a growing population amidst environmental uncertainty and depletion, social disruptions, and structural economic shocks and stresses. Crafting a sustainable and resilient food system requires us to go beyond disciplinary boundaries and broaden critical and creative thinking skills. Recent literature calls for examples of pedagogical transformations from food systems courses to identify successful practices and potential challenges. We offer a recipe for what to teach by framing systems thinking concepts, then discuss how to teach it with five learning activities: deductive case studies, experiential learning, reflective narrative learning, system dynamics simulations and scenarios, and inductive/open-ended case studies, implemented with collaborative group learning, inter/trans-disciplinarity, and instructor-modeled co-learning. Each learning activity is animated with concrete examples from our courses at Oregon State University, University of Minnesota, and University of Vermont, USA. We discuss opportunities and challenges implementing these strategies in light of student, instructor, and institutional expectations and constraints. But the challenge is worth the effort, because food system transformation requires active learners and systemic thinkers as engaged citizens, food system advocates, entrepreneurs, and policy makers.

We conducted interviews with 18 direct market (DM) farmers to explore the implications of the Oregon minimum wage (MW) increase for the state’s DM agricultural sector. How, if at all, will DM farms in the Willamette Valley (OR, USA) adjust their production and marketing practices in response to the MW increase? How will these adjustments affect DM farm viability, farmworkers, the environment, and the communities in which the farms are embedded? This region has a vibrant food system with many small-to-mid sized, diversified farms that sell through direct and intermediated marketing channels. The diversified production and marketing practices of these DM farmers are labor intensive and, in many respects, environmentally friendly. These practices result in relatively high costs and the farmers’ ability to respond by increasing prices is constrained by mainstream retail prices. Most growers reported that they will adjust to the MW increase by reducing their production and marketing costs with a decrease in total labor hours being an important strategy. This study, while small and exploratory, is the first in Oregon (and perhaps nationally) to collect empirical farm-level data about how DM farms will adjust to a MW increase. It sets the stage for future research.

Rural communities have faced significant socio-economic challenges for the past several decades due to structural shifts and changing social expectations regarding the management, production of, and markets for natural resources, including production agriculture. The New Natural Resource Economy (NNRE) is an economic development approach to the use of natural resources, including agriculture, in ways that can build healthy environments and healthy, resilient local economies (Hibbard and Lurie, 2013). A major attribute of the NNRE is its focus on very small businesses, the predominant business type in rural settings. Emerging trends, such as regional food networks (RFNs) that connect food producers to consumers within a state or local region, may provide opportunities for rural communities to diversify and expand local businesses around the use of natural resources, thereby helping to restore greater capacity for self-direction and adding to local community vitality. Thus, we address whether RFNs in rural Oregon counties display characteristics of an NNRE development strategy through the relationships between agricultural producers and consumers that support very small agricultural enterprises. Based on analysis of Oregon producer survey data from 2016 in the more rural resource-dependent Oregon counties, we find that the RFN producer survey respondents are indeed very small businesses engaged in small-scale, multifunctional agriculture. They are motivated by economic, social, and environmental concerns as they contribute to the economic activity in their communities. We also surveyed Oregon consumers, finding that although consumer survey respondents in the same region are not primarily driven to buy local based on environmental considerations, they are nonetheless interested in supporting agriculture and local businesses. The demand for local products can create a virtuous cycle contributing to the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the community. Given appropriate policy and program support, there is fertile ground to create new opportunities to generate farm income and acquire food within the NNRE healthy environment-healthy economy paradigm for rural economic development.

Food safety regulations involve a tradeoff: the costs of regulatory compliance in exchange for a reduction in the risk of foodborne illness. But local food advocates point out that these costs have a disproportionate impact on small food producers, and that this impact threatens the viability and continued growth of the farm direct marketing sector. Oregon's farm direct marketers and local food advocates crafted new legislation to reform three areas of food safety regulatory affecting farm direct marketers: (1) licensing of the physical spaces where farm direct products are sold, (2) streamlining produce peddler licenses, and (3) deregulating specified low-risk producer-processed farm direct marketed products. Oregon's Farm Direct Marketing Bill, HB 2336, passed the Oregon legislature; it became effective January 1, 2012. The Oregon Department of Agriculture issued final administrative rules on June 1, 2012. After reviewing the narrow exemptions in the law and the unique characteristics of farm direct foods, it appears that Oregon's Farm Direct Marketing Bill preserves food safety while fostering the direct farm marketing sector.