Food Studies Commons^™

Don’T Count On Kiwis At A Kiwi Farmers’ Market: Communicating Intersections Of Globalization And Local Food At Aotearoa New Zealand Farmers’ Markets, Travis Bartosh

Communication (PhD) Dissertations

The main question driving this study seeks to understand how New Zealand farmers’ markets represent and engage with global and local issues in relation to food production, distribution, and consumption. Under this question, three sub-questions seek to understand the discourses present at the markets, how these discourses insect with globalization and local food, and how this intersection works to organize contemporary farmers’ markets.

The findings for this dissertation are divided into three chapters. The first findings chapter lays out the discourses present in the data. These discourses are largely related to food producer sovereignty. The second findings chapter looks …

Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration Into The Growing Trend Of Farm-To-Table Communities Across The United States, Benjamin Breger

Masters Theses

Agrihoods are a recent trend in real estate development that integrate agricultural amenities - such as working farms, orchards, or community gardens - into residential or mixed-use communities. As an emergent trend, agrihoods have the potential to enhance farmland preservation and local and regional food systems, making them a ripe area for research. However, very little scholarly research has been carried out to characterize, contextualize or evaluate agrihood developments. Thus far, the development model has primarily been detailed in popular media sources. This thesis serves as a baseline study that seeks to understand how neighborhood food systems operate within agrihood …

Follow Your Food: An Investigation Of Podcasting To Communicate The Complexity Of Food Choice And How It Impacts Us, Our Communities And The Earth, Melissa K. Pasanen

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

This professional project explores the popular and relatively new media communications vehicle of podcasting to engage and inform the general public about the complexity of the food system. It has involved background research on the dynamics of podcasting from production to marketing and distribution, including surveys of academic literature and existing podcasts in the subject area, as well as informational interviews with several podcast producers. It has also included development and sample production of a potential podcast series, starting with a weeklong podcast training and concluding with a fully produced pilot episode, plus additional scripts using material from 11 audio …

Breaking Ground On New Agricultural Models: Industrial Agriculture And The Local Food Movement, Elizabeth Nealon

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper discusses and examines the longstanding issues surrounding industrial food production as it currently exists and the various ways that purpose-driven enterprises and environmentally-conscious consumers in the United States have been able to steer food production in a more sustainable direction. Over the course of the technological revolution, people living in metropolitan areas have become so distanced from farms and the processes of food production that many are ignorant of the realities of the food industry. Chapter 1 addresses these issues by presenting quantitative data that lays out a timeline of the evolution of the food and agriculture industry …

On The Path To A Resilient Urban Food System In A Rural State: A Mixed-Method Needs Assessment Of Urban Producers And County Extension Agents In Arkansas, Catherine Elizabeth Dobbins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project utilized a mixed-method needs assessment approach to urban agriculture in Arkansas, a predominately-rural state. Chapter II was a qualitative study, using semi-structured, in-depth interviews, that investigated the perceptions, needs, and experiences of Arkansas urban farmers and their interactions with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service (CES). Interviews were conducted with 16 urban farmers in Northwest and Central Arkansas. The interview data revealed individualized needs based on the size, years in operation, and mission of each urban farmer interviewed. General needs were determined, such as market pricing, co-ops, and access to appropriate equipment, but generally …

Pro-Social Consumer And Firm Behavior In Imperfectly Competitive Regional Agricultural Markets, Jill Fitzsimmons

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I combine field research, econometric methods, and economic theory to analyze a market in which both firms’ and consumers’ choices are motivated by social preferences. This work contributes to the fields of behavioral economics, industrial organization, and local food systems economics. The dissertation expands the growing literature on social preferences to incorporate firms’ choices that are motivated by utility maximizing objectives in an environment that allows endogenous equilibrium prices and quantities. Firms with social preferences operate in a competitive environment in which they may face downstream market power. In particular, the research focuses on intermediated Farm to …

Barriers To Local Food Producers In Arkansas, Courtney Cooper, Zola Moon

Horticulture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the barriers that prevent local food producers from selling their food in a mainstream market. This study utilized both qualitative and quantitative analysis through a mixed-methods survey. Information collected through the study had a two-fold focus: barriers that producers face (or that they are providing assistance for) and what are consumers looking for in products that these producers are supplying. The major barriers found for local food producers in Arkansas were lack of capital and obtaining infrastructure for packaging, processing, and storing products. Qualitative analysis of textual interviews was done …