Search

PurposeThe purposes of this paper are to: (1) characterize farmers’ market manager and vendor perceptions of the economic, social and environmental impact markets have on their local communities; and (2) how those impacts are tracked and communicated to market actors and the local community.Design/methodology/approachTwenty-nine semistructured interviews were conducted with market managers and vendors across four farmers’ markets within Michigan. The interviews were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis.FindingsManagers and vendors report economic and social and environmental benefits associated with the presence of a farmers' market, consistent with the existing literature. Metrics are tracked to estimate market impact, particularly economic and social benefits. Market managers reported uncertainty about how best to use data internally, and there are gaps in communicating market impacts with vendors. Most data are used for external reporting, to statewide organizations or for grant evaluation. Respondents reported data fatigue and unwillingness among vendors to share personal business information due to concerns about privacy relative to the perceived benefits of sharing data.Practical implicationsAdditional resources are needed for markets, specifically market managers, to better utilize the data they collect for internal versus external purposes.Originality/valueMetric collection and reporting are a nascent development among markets. Understanding how market actors are utilizing these tools will provide guidance to improve future efforts at impact measurement.

Western voices from publications predominantly in English dominate conversations surrounding knowledge production, consumption, and dissemination, which in turn shapes social policy. To achieve feminist epistemological frameworks that many academic publications espouse, we call for publications that are accessible and equitable not only for academics, but also for community partners and activists. To ensure a role for diverse voices, we must remove language barriers that prioritize Western viewpoints. Feminist scholars are poised to advance the contemporary debates on the politics of the language of academic publishing, and explore ways that a decolonized, inclusive approach could benefit knowledge on a global scale.

Throughout the United States, urban food systems are in suboptimal states that are not operating efficiently or equitably and thus do not support food security for all. Creating transformation to a more sustainable and desirable state first requires acknowledging the different values of diverse groups within a city. Then these diverse values can be used to explore pluralistic pathways to futures that maximize benefits for multiple stakeholders. We demonstrate how integrating visioning and Q-methodology can achieve an inclusive understanding of values as priorities for such a food system. Applied in Flint, Michigan, a post-industrial Rust Belt city, this approach can shape the planning process for cities experiencing food insecurity. Qualitative analysis of data from a visioning workshop resulted in sixteen values as priorities for a sustainable and desirable food system. Values as priorities were then ranked in a Q-sort activity, from which three unique groups of ranking patterns emerged, each of which can be interpreted as a vision for a better future. The three visions were a food system with healthy foods that residents are willing to travel for; a food system with convenient, fresh food options for those who cannot travel; and a food system that maintains the community’s food traditions. Our novel mixed methods approach empowers communities by giving them a voice in the planning process but also allows decision makers to create transformation pathways that more accurately reflect the needs of the various subsets of community members who hold diverse visions and priorities.

As lockdown and school closure policies were implemented in response to the coronavirus, the federal government provided funding and relaxed its rules to support emergency food provision, but not guidance on best practices for effectiveness. Accordingly, cities developed a diverse patchwork of emergency feeding programs. This article uses qualitative data to provide insight into emergency food provision developed in five cities to serve children and families. Based on our qualitative analysis, we find that the effectiveness of local approaches appears to depend on: (i) cross‐sector collaboration, (ii) supply chains, and (iii) addressing gaps in service to increased risk populations.

In this paper, I examine the disconnect between government and NGO responses to Cyclone Pam, and previous healthy food initiatives in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Decades of nutrition education programs acr...

Adoption, fosterage, and child exchange constitute major themes in the literature on Pacific Island societies. However, a world where the movement of people has both intensified and become more complex challenges existing approaches to the circulation of children. We examine diverse conditions of contemporary child circulation: the shift from rural to urban to international migration; the capacities of kinship systems to adapt to this change; and the significance of children's experiences in assessing the consequences of global circulation. Spanning Oceania, the subsequent five articles bring innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of child circulation, focusing on the impact global circulation has on the well-being of the youngest generation of those who move, are moved, or are left behind. This collection asks how sturdy the meanings and the practices of adoption, fosterage, and child exchange are when individuals come into the nexus of international and nation-state laws an...

The circulation of children among family members can have a dramatic impact on child health, contributing to the pervasive problem of childhood under-nutrition Vanuatu faces. Kin, particularly elders, have great influence on decisions regarding infant and child feeding practices, as well as with whom the child resides. Intervening kin can dictate the physical relocation of children through informal systems of adoption for varying lengths of time. The impacts this widespread practice has on child health are often overlooked in studies of childhood malnutrition and in public health interventions. In documenting narratives of childhood malnutrition and the circulation of children within Vanuatu households, this paper reveals that informal movements can lead to the hospitalisation of children with diagnoses of ‘failure to thrive’. Bringing to light the hidden circuits of communal childrearing, my paper calls for a reexamination of Western biomedical and nutritional education in the context of an enduring cust...

Visual-narrative elicitation, a process combining photo elicitation and pile sorting in applied medical anthropology, sheds light on food consumption patterns in urban areas of Vanuatu where childhood malnutrition is a persistent problem. Groups of participants took photographs of the foods they feed their children, and the resources and barriers they encounter in accessing foodstuffs. This revealed how imported and local foods are assigned value as "good" or "bad" foods when contributing to dietary diversity and creating appropriate meals for children, particularly in the context of consuming white rice. The process of gathering and working with photographs illuminated the complex negotiations in which caregivers engaged when making food and nutritional choices for their children. At the nexus of visual and medical anthropology, the visual-narrative elicitation process yielded nuanced, comprehensive understandings of how caregivers value the various foods they feed their children.

This article describes how the private problem of food insecurity in Vanuatu becomes public when children seek community feasts to cope with inadequate family food resources. Ethnographic data reveal that community members, particularly women who serve food at feasts, are increasingly aware of the rise in hungry children attending feasts. This is the subject of gossip, as public eating becomes a way that children inadvertently reveal private pain and familial struggle. Data illustrate that negotiating the public and private space in which food insecurity is displayed and communicated is a critical lens for understanding how eating behaviors shape cultural identities.