Food Studies Commons^™

Ensuring Efficacy In Local Food Shelf Programming, Sophie Hartry Springer

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The Farmstand at the Food Shelf is a program created by South Burlington non-profit Common Roots and the South Burlington Food Shelf, where organic, local food grown at the Common Roots farm is distributed to food shelf customers. Along with fresh produce, Food Shelf customers are also able to take prepared meals, recipe samples, local animal protein, plant starts, and other offerings. This research explores the wants and needs of customers at the South Burlington Food Shelf through quantitative and qualitative research in order to understand the limits and strengths of the current programming offered by Common Roots. Results suggest …

Advancing Agroecological Agroforestry: A Vermont Participatory Storytelling And Story Mapping Project, Sydney Blume

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees into agricultural landscapes. Advancing agroforestry has the potential to support just food system transition, but it must take direction from traditional approaches (culturally-embedded, millennia-old agroforestry practices in forest ecosystems) and agroecology (the movement, science, and practice for just and sustainable food and agricultural systems). An agroecological approach to agroforestry is essential to avoid agroforestry replicating the logics and harms of industrial agriculture and to encourage learning from traditional agroforestry practices, and likewise, traditional approaches to agroforestry can support a transformative agroecological transition through redesign of agroecosystems and shifting perspectives and ethics. This paper …

Food Resilience Toolkit, Neishaly Serrano-Cortés, Claire Whitehouse, David Conner, Robinson Rodríguez-Pérez Phd, Naomi M. Cunningham, Travis Reynolds Ph.D., Kerry Daigle, Valery Desravins, Jane Kolodinsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This toolkit is intended to help community leaders and technical support professionals assess and build food system resilience in their regions. The toolkit is available in English and Spanish and in written and video format. In the introduction, we explore the concept of resilience and the Community Capitals framework and suggest possible indicators of food system resilience. In Chapter 2, we outline four tools for assessing community advantages and challenges and developing plans to address them. These tools are: asset mapping, focus groups, nominal groups, and strategic planning. While many research techniques can be deployed for resilience building, we have …

A 2022 Assessment Of Food Security And Health Outcomes During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ashley C. Mccarthy, Farryl Bertmann, Emily H. Belarmino, Sam Bliss, Jennifer Laurent, Jonathan Malacarne, Scott Merrill, Rachel E. Schattman, Kathryn Yerxa, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

We conducted a Northern New England survey to understand the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, food access, home food production, health behaviors, and health outcomes. The surveys were conducted in the spring of 2022 (April-May) with a total of 1,013 adults (598 in Maine and 415 in Vermont) responding to the survey. Key findings include:1. The prevalence of food insecurity remains similarly high to early points in the pandemic, likely driven by inflation and food prices, and long-term impacts from the pandemic. 2. The majority (62%) indicated the recent rise in food prices affected their food purchasing, …

Seeds Of Resilience: Learning From Covid-19 To Strengthen Seed Systems In Vermont, Ali Brooks, Carina V. Isbell, Daniel Tobin Ph.D., Travis Reynolds Ph.D., Eric Bishop Von Wettberg Ph.D., David Conner Ph.D., Evie Wolfe

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Seeds are central to crop-based production systems, yet in the United States seeds have been largely overlooked in both research and local and regional food systems initiatives. This report seeks to address the gap in seed-related research by assessing current strengths and vulnerabilities of Vermont’s seed systems. In particular, the findings presented in this report illuminate how seed systems can maintain function in the face of external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and how we can apply the lessons learned toward building resilience for an uncertain future due to factors such as climate change. Despite the turmoil caused by …

Food Insecurity In Vermont Households: An Analysis Of The Association With Tobacco Use, Alcohol Consumption And Physical Inactivity, Hannah R. Kaufman, Kyleigh Savoie, Emily Belanger, Kijonna Bowman, Darren Childs, Hendrika Maltby

Master of Public Health Culminating Projects

Objectives: To assess the relationship between chronic disease risk behaviors: tobacco usage, alcohol consumption, sedentary lifestyle, and food insecurity (FI) among Vermonters. Methods: This cross-sectional study uses a sample (n= 1,378) from Vermont’s 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The examined outcome is FI. The predictor measures were defined as at-risk tobacco use, alcohol consumption, and sedentary lifestyles.The following were established as covariates on the association between the dependent and independent variables: income, sex, age, race/ethnicity, and activity limitations. Results: In the unadjusted binomial logistic regression (Table 2), tobacco users were 3.32 times more likely to be food …

Vermont Seed Saver And Producer Survey: 2020 Summary Report, Susanna Baxley, Carina Viola Isbell, Daniel Tobin

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This report summarizes findings from a 2020 survey of seed producers in the state of Vermont. This survey, which was part of a larger research project aimed to characterize Vermont seed systems, aimed to identify areas of opportunity and concern for seed producers across the state. Data collected include types and valued characteristics of planting material produced from food crops in the state, information on motivations, challenges, and preferences that non-commercial and commercial seed producers perceive in their production of planting material, sourcing and distribution of planting material, forms of exchange that exist between seed producers and the community, and …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On The Local Food System: Early Findings From Vermont, Emily H. Belarmino, Farryl Bertmann, Thomas Wentworth, Erin Biehl, Roni Neff, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected people worldwide, disrupting food access and security. To understand how food systems and security are impacted during this pandemic, an online survey was launched in Vermont from March 29th - April 12th, 2020 (less than a week after the Governor’s Stay Home/Stay Safe order). A total of 3,219 Vermonters responded, and nearly half provided written comments in response to open-ended questions about worries or general remarks. This brief summarizes survey findings and respondent comments relevant to the local food system, specifically local farms and direct-to-consumer sales, home food production, foraging, hunting, and fishing. …

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 …

Room To Grow: Agritourism Opportunities In Vermont Agriculture And Food System Plan: 2020 (Part One), Carolyn Hricko, Katie Robertson, Nick Rose, Meredith T. Niles

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

This analysis demonstrates that there is signficant unrealized potential to advance agritourism within the Vermont Agriculture and Food System Plan: 2020 (Part One)1 strategic plan and that applying an agritourism lens allows for the identification of a wide range of additional opportunities that can support Vermont farmers and agritourism goals. While agritourism is recognized in the report with a dedicated issue brief, this subsector of Vermont agriculture is otherwise largely overlooked in the other opportunities identified in Vermont’s strategic plan, particularly for the agritourism activities of hospitality, recreation, and entertainment. While direct-to-consumer sales, agricultural education, and farm diversification were referenced …

Vermont Agriculture And Food System Plan 2020 -- A Review Of Recommendations (Part One), Susanna Baxley, Ann Chiarenzelli, Lucy Drummond, Tung-Lin Liu, Meredith T. Niles

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Key Findings in reviewing the Vermont Agriculture and Food System Plan:

1. All recommendations in this review have been coded into eight thematic categories to be used more effectively by stakeholders.

2. We identify four clusters of recommendations to assist stakeholders in understanding the relationships between categories and enabling understanding of the various stakeholders and resources necessary to implement recommendations from different briefs

3. 87% of recommendations either request direct funding for an initiative or recommend a capital expenditure. With financial challenges amidst COVID-19, we highlight eight recommendations for a Vermont Food System that could move forward without financial resources. …

Fruit And Vegetable Access In Mobile Food Pantries Serving Households Impacted By Opioid Addiction, Emily R. Barbour

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The opioid crisis has continued to escalate in Vermont, claiming more lives each year (“Drug Overdose Death Data,” 2017) and affecting the health and wellbeing of individuals and families alike (Gowdey, 2018). Struggles with addiction have been shown to have severe impacts on both individual (Nabipour et al., 2014) and childhood nutrition (Chilton et al., 2014) in particular. This assessment explored the need for mobile pantry program providing free fruit and vegetables to households impacted by opioid addiction in Chittenden County. Additionally, this research seeks to investigate gaps, successes, and barriers in current and proposed fruit and vegetable access programs …

Agency And Empowerment On Women-Owned Farms: A Vermont Agricultural Case Study, Caroline R. Putscher

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

When examining data from the most recent US Census of Agriculture (2012), I noticed a distinct imbalance between the percentages of male and female farmers, both in the country and in Vermont. Sales from women-owned farms represent only 3.3 percent of the total of U.S. agricultural sales, and in Vermont, women were the principal operators of 22.38 percent of farms. I wanted to examine the factors that led to these imbalances, and also understand from women farmers themselves what strategies they used to overcome these obstacles. The theories of agency and empowerment can be used in explaining women’s inequality in …

Preferences For Local And Organic Food: A Comparison Of New Hampshire And Vermont, Victoria Smith Lorvig

Honors Theses and Capstones

Annies bunnies or Kraft elbows? Supermarket or farmers market? Organic and local foods have been on the rise in the global market since the new millennium began (Darnhofer, 2010: 68, Schupp, 2016: 319). The growth in organic is attributed to consumers wanting their food to be healthier and more environmentally friendly (Aschemann-Witzel et. Al, 2017: 211, Van Doorn et. A, 2011: 167). The appeals of local foods are similar, plus the added component of boosting the local economy and building community (Hempel & Hamm, 2016: 732). Income is not the only factor affecting preferences and willingness to pay (WTP). Actors …