Public Policy Commons^™

Caja De Herramientas: Desarrollando Resiliencia En El Sistema Alimentario, Neishaly Serrano-Cortés, Claire Whitehouse, David Conner, Robinson Rodríguez-Pérez Phd, Naomi Cunningham, Travis Reynolds Ph.D., Kerry Daigle, Valery Desravins, Jane Kolodinsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

En esta caja de herramientas encontrarán guías y estudios sobre evaluación y desarrollo de la resiliencia de los sistemas agroalimentarios. La meta de este trabajo es que personas de la comunidad, líderes y profesionales puedan utilizar este material para que a través de la colaboración se pueda catalizar un cambio positivo en los sistemas agroalimentarios de sus regiones. Además, con el fin de lograr que este material educativo sea accesible se ha desarrollado tanto en manuscrito como videos, en los idiomas del inglés y español.

En el Capítulo 1, se explora el concepto de resiliencia, el marco de los capitales …

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 …

Hemp In The United States: An Analysis Of Policy And Consumption, Amanda Falkner

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As highlighted by its history, the association between hemp and marijuana has proven to be a barrier to success for industrial hemp production for decades. Once a prevalent agricultural crop in the United States, prohibitive legislation discouraged its production and formally made hemp an illegal crop in 1970. Consequently, hemp and its myriad applications remained underutilized by the United States for over forty years. It wasn’t until the 2014 Farm Bill that hemp production was reintroduced as an option for farmers. This hemp hiatus has created the need for interdisciplinary research in order for the market for the crop to …

Building Relationships And Resilience: Local Food Systems In Vermont And New England During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Beyond, Claire Whitehouse

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis brings together two studies of local food systems in Vermont and New England. The first study focuses on the experience of Vermont local food businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic by combining two surveys conducted in the first half of 2021: one of foodservice operations that procure food locally and one of Vermont farms that sell directly to consumers. We analyzed descriptive statistics, open responses, and conducted Kruskal-Wallis rank sum tests to assess which factors were related with business’ financial status before and since the pandemic. Pre-pandemic financial status was related with business type, whether the business went on …

Understanding The Relationship Among Durable Goods, Academic Achievement, And School Attendance In Colombia, Hans Walter Cabra

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A joint report from the United Nations Development Program and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative indicates that while the number of people living with less than $1.90 a day declined globally, dropping from 2 billion in 1990 to 736 million in 2015, the number of people who experienced non-income poverty reached 1.3 billion in 2020. Non-income poverty, referred to as multidimensional poverty, assesses the extent to which people are deprived from accessing basic services such as health, education, or attaining decent living standards, despite having income levels well above $1.90.

Research on development and welfare economics points to …

Policy And Economic Variables Influencing Adoption Of Sustainable Electrification In Rural Sub-Saharan Africa, Payne William Morgan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Limited access to electricity remains a primary constraint to economic growth and the improvement of livelihoods throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In rural areas, electricity access is especially sparse. The reasons for the scarcity of electricity supply in the region are well documented, with low population density, limited household incomes, and poor regulatory institutions compounding to often make the investment of expanding electricity access result in poor or risky economic returns. However, the declining cost of solar PV and mandates for clean energy development throughout the region have created new channels for bringing electricity supply in potentially more cost-effective ways.Despite these macro …

After The Flood: Exploring The Influence Of Risk Perception And Decision Criteria Preference On Flood Mitigation In The Lake Champlain Richelieu River Basin, Emma Jane Spett

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In April of 2011, heavy rainfall paired with snow melt from the Green and Adirondack Mountains caused unprecedented flooding in the Lake Champlain Richelieu River (LCRR) basin. A study was subsequently convened by the International Joint Commission (IJC), and was tasked with identifying how flood forecasting, preparedness, and mitigation could be improved in order to reduce the impact of flooding in this transboundary watershed, and build the greater community’s resilience to flooding. A component of this study includes an assessment of the social acceptability and political feasibility of potential flood mitigation measures, which was in part carried out through the …

Measuring Comprehensive Wellbeing In Vermont: An Applied Economics Perspective, Katherine Gallagher

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

While human “wellbeing” has historically been measured by economic growth, traditional metrics do not fit the challenges of the 21st century. Increasingly, decision-makers are adopting new guiding frameworks that encompass a more holistic understanding of wellbeing and progress including concepts such as ecological health and subjective wellbeing. Yet, the development processes and implementation challenges faced by these initiatives - as well as the opportunities for advancement - remain relatively unexamined for state and regional communities. This research considers the implementation and potential of existing wellbeing indicator systems in Vermont. With limited research on wellbeing measurement at the state or local …

Designing For Economic Success: A 50-State Analysis Of The Genuine Progress Indicator, Mairi-Jane Venesky Fox

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the primary measure of economic progress has arguably led to unintended consequences of environmental degradation and socially skewed outcomes. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) was designed to reveal the trade offs associated with conventional economic growth and to assess the broader impact of economic benefits and costs on sustainable human welfare. Although originally designed for use at the national scale, an interest has developed in the United States in a state-level uptake of the GPI to inform and guide policy. However, questions exist about the quality and legitimacy of the GPI as …

Emission Permits As A Monetary Policy Tool: Is It Feasible? Is It Ethical?, Tracey Mccowen

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The price of emission permits is deemed too low to mitigate climate change. In three studies, policy approaches to pricing carbon in a market setting are examined. First, the emission permit market is analyzed comparatively to how the ethanol mandate impacted prices in the corn market. This leads to the realization that the marketization of carbon is more like a currency than a physical commodity. The next study examines emission permits as a monetary policy tool. Emissions correlate GDP output, thus central banks can use emission permits as forward guidance, as a means to optimize the price for climate change …

Collaboration And Conflict In The Adirondack Park: An Analysis Of Conservation Discourses Over Time, Jeffrey Michael O'Donnell

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The role of collaboration within conservation is of increasing interest to scholars, managers and forest communities. Collaboration can take many forms, but one under-studied topic is the form and content of public discourses across conservation project timelines. To understand the discursive processes that influence conservation decision-making, this research evaluates the use of collaborative rhetoric and claims about place within discourses of conservation in the Adirondacks. Local newspaper articles and editorials published from January 1996 to December 2013 and concerning six major conservation projects were studied using content analysis. Results show that collaborative rhetoric increased during the study period, and conflict …

Grass-Based Dairy In Vermont: Benefits, Barriers, And Effective Public Policies, Serge William Wiltshire

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A comprehensive literature review was undertaken in order to define and assess the sustainability and resiliency characteristics associated with grass-based and confinement dairy farming. Primarily as a result of reduced input costs, grass-based dairy farming often enhances profitability over confinement systems, especially on small farms. Further, conversion of tilled soil to permanent pasture has been shown to significantly reduce harmful sediment and nutrient transport into waterways. Perennial forage also acts as a carbon sink, curtailing or even negating a grass-based farm's carbon footprint. Finally, social benefits derived from enhanced nutrition and higher quality of life are also associated with grass-based …

Supporting A Growing Agricultural Economy By Understanding Child Care In Farm Families, Emily Stengel

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis argues for the consideration of child care accessibility and costs as one factor in the success and wellbeing of farmers in the United States. There is a long tradition in rural studies of recognizing that farms are not just economic enterprises but are family-based social enterprises as well, with household level issues and family roles that are both acknowledged and contested. However, child care is missing from virtually all scholarly and public discussions of agricultural workforce development - even more so than other social services and family supports. Additionally, the agricultural sector, considered as a portion of U.S. …

Renewable Energy Zoning: Cutting Green Tape While Improving Ecological Outcomes For Renewable Energy Projects, Joanna Elizabeth White

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change creates an imperative to develop renewable energy infrastructure, and the state of Vermont has committed to developing new renewables. However, renewables pose significant threats to natural systems because of the dramatic changes to ecosystems that occur with development. Public outcry over new developments and dissatisfaction with the current process used for siting indicate that the old regulatory process may be outdated. This thesis seeks to bridge the divide between ecology and law in renewable energy infrastructure siting. Using the state of Vermont as a case study, it suggests a new, proactive energy planning process that would use spatial …

Transforming Organic Waste Into A Marketable Product: A Conjoint Analysis Of Bulk Compost Preferences And Strategies For Expanding The Compost Market In Vermont, Daniel Colin Keeney

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Organic waste management presents challenges and opportunities alike for community-based economic development. Waste-to-compost transformation can be socially and economically successful by employing ecological design principles, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and values-based supply chains (VCs). An analysis of commercial buyers' preferences for compost will inform approaches to forming effective partnerships of public, private and nonprofit stakeholders to develop a market for local waste resource products. The thesis summarizes the results of a consumer preferences survey of current and prospective bulk compost purchasers and discusses strategies for implementing new organic waste management policies that will strengthen a local market for compost, build social capital …

Promoting Food Security: The Community Food Security Coalition, Elizabeth A. Berman

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article discusses community food security as a socio-economic issue, and highlights the Community Food Security Coalition (http://www.foodsecurity.org/), a non-profit organization that is “dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times."