Food deserts are a growing problem in the United States, and occur in areas of low-income where people have limited access to healthy foods. In response, the presence of farmers’ markets has grown exponentially, and improved healthy food access. Additionally, the USDA has strived to connect families to healthy foods through food assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP). This study investigated the relationship between farmers’ markets, their acceptance of food assistance benefits, and their locations within Tennessee food deserts census tracts. Using the 2017 Farmers’ Market Directory, this study merged market data, including geocoded addresses, with the appropriate census tract data from the 2015 Food Access Research Atlas. Chi-square tests of independence and spatial visualizations were used to assess the relationship of census tracts, farmers markets, and food assistance benefits. Of the 1,497 Tennessee census tracts, 18.0% were food deserts. Of these food deserts, 9.3% had at least one market present. Of these food deserts, 92.0% were urban. Of 130 farmers’ markets in Tennessee, 34.6% accepted any food assistance benefits. Additionally, 56.9% of all markets were in areas of high socioeconomic status (SES). Results indicated that markets were clustered in urban areas, and few were identified as food deserts. Additionally, few markets were in food deserts and accepted any food assistance benefit. Due to these findings, the definition of food deserts should be expanded to include additional food retailers other than supermarkets. Also, additional policies and research is needed to reinforce farmers’ markets and food assistance programs as food access interventions.

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Architecture is a product of its surroundings. The response to site, program, and history of place differs everytime. How we interpret a place is influenced by our own experiences in life. We each possess a unique set of tools which we use to construct the spaces that surround us. A place is given life and vitality through the people that use them. It is the architect's job to create a place that encourages life to exist. Everyday activities take many forms - eating, sleeping, working, playing, sitting - all forms of interaction. When these activities are set in an urban location, life begins to dictate the spaces necessary for them to take place. An urban setting needs people to thrive; and people choose to live in these settings for human interaction, dependence on others, and a sense of belonging. This thesis investigates the integration of urban housing and retail space in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. It is architecture that is desperately needed in order to sustain urban life in this part of town. / Master of Architecture

Walls encasing equivalent modules of space form a structure visually connecting individual elements into a single organism. The placement and form of these walls allows each module of space to retain distinct lighting qualities conversely drawing the individual out of the whole. / Master of Architecture

abstract: Consumers can purchase local food through intermediated marketing channels, such as grocery stores, or through direct-to-consumer marketing channels, for instance, farmers markets. While the number of farms that utilize direct-to-consumer outlets keeps increasing, the direct-to-consumer sales remain lower than intermediated sales. If consumers prefer to purchase local food through intermediated channels, then policies designed to support direct channels may be misguided. Using a variety of experiments, this dissertation investigates consumer preferences for local food and their demand differentiated by marketing channel. In the first essay, I examine the existing literature on consumer preferences for local food by applying meta-regression analysis to a set of eligible research papers. My analysis provides evidence of statistically significant willingness to pay for local food products. Moreover, I find that a methodological approach and study-specific characteristics have a significant influence on the reported estimates for local attribute. By separating the demand for local from the demand for a particular channel, the second essay attempts to disentangle consumers’ preferences for marketing channels and the local-attribute in their food purchases. Using an online choice experiment, I find that consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food. However, they are not willing to pay premiums for local food that is sold at farmers markets relative to supermarkets. Therefore, in the third essay I seek to explain the rise in intermediated local by investigating local food shopping behavior. I develop a model of channel-selection in a nested context and apply it to the primary data gathered through an online food diary. I find that, while some consumers enjoy shopping at farmers markets to meet their objectives, such as socialization with farmers, the majority of consumers buy local food from supermarkets because they offer convenient settings where a variety of products can be bought as one basket. My overall results suggest that, if the goal is to increase the sales of local food, regardless of the channel, then existing supply-chain relationships in the local food channel appear to be performing well. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Agribusiness 2018

Thesis (M.Sc. (Agricultural economics)) --University of Limpopo, 2012 / Refer to document / Water Research Commission (CSIR)

This study will investigate Sears, Roebuck & Co. and the special relationship it established with the South during the first half of the twentieth-century. The study will examine oral interviews with former employees, southern literature and customer letters from the region in an effort to better understand how Sears became more than just a friend to the poor dirt farmers of the South; it became a uniquely southern institution.

abstract: ABSTRACT Fruit and vegetable intake is not uniform across levels of socioeconomic status (SES) and researchers have identified low SES as a risk factor for poor intake of fruits and vegetables. In an effort to eliminate public health disparities and increase fruit and vegetable intake, the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program implemented additional food assistance programs, with a specific emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables. The Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) provides pre-existing WIC clients with coupons to purchase fresh, locally grown produce at farmers' markets. In addition, Congress also approved the WIC Cash Value Voucher (CVV) program, which provides WIC participants with vouchers to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets or grocery stores. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the relation of FMNP coupon use with accessibility and WIC CVV redemption rates at farmers' markets. Furthermore, this thesis addressed whether WIC shoppers redeemed a higher percentage of their WIC CVV value at farmers' markets or grocery stores. WIC CVV and FMNP issuance and redemption data were analyzed to establish overall redemption rates and total perecent of WIC CVV value redeemed. Accessibility was assessed using the Geographic Information System, which allowed me to calculate the distance that WIC participants would have to travel to redeem their FMNP coupons at FMNP-approved farmers' markets. The results showed that less than 1% of WIC shoppers redeem their WIC CVVs at farmers'markets in Arizona. However, the redemption of WIC CVV was significantly higher during the months when shoppers had the option of using both WIC CVV and FMNP coupons at farmers' markets. Furthermore, the percent of total CVV value redeemed at farmers' markets was 99%, significantly higher than grocery stores (93.5%). Average FMNP coupon redemption rates for 2008-2010 was 43.3%, well below the national average of 59%. However, my spatial analysis revealed that there was no significant association between the distance traveled to farmers' markets and FMNP redemption rates. This indicates that the distance traveled to farmers' markets is not a major barrier to redemption of FMNP coupons in Arizona. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Nutrition 2012

This study evaluates the public market system in New Orleans, Louisiana by focusing on the history of New Orleans public markets, the privatization of food, and the "greening" of the city with the creation of the Crescent City Farmers Market and other grass roots food activist efforts. Using qualitative methods, ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation and interviewing, issues of food access, food security, food production, food locality, quality, and affordability in New Orleans are explored. The history of public markets in New Orleans and the patterns of market proliferation, regulation, and privatization are significant in the landscape of cultural self-identification, community cohesion, neighborhood networks and economic and ecological development and sustainability. The city's various food shopping arenas and their locations become markers of history, status, rebellion, and of the "other," and become centers for issues of health, economy, politics, and food.

A questão central de nosso estudo é compreender como são formadas as concepções de qualidade dos alimentos no âmbito dos mercados de proximidade, especificamente, nas feiras dos produtores. Esta pesquisa teve como referência uma mudança recente no setor agroalimentar, identificada principalmente entre países europeus de uma virada para a qualidade, o quality turn. Observamos um renascimento das feiras, seja por um fortalecimento da importância daquelas já existentes, ou pela criação de novas feiras na região da aglomeração urbana de Piracicaba. Analisamos dois estudos de caso de mercados de proximidade, identificando como estão organizadas e quais são valores que lhes são atribuídos. Com o mesmo intuito, analisamos as normas jurídicas que incidem sobre os dois casos, através do Sistema de Inspeção Municipal (SIM), no entendimento que estas regras também expressam acordos e concepções, os quais são socialmente construídos e disputados. Para tal utilizamos teorias como aquelas da criação do mercado auto-regulável, proposta por Polany (2012), do enraizamento dos mercados de Granovetter (2007) e dos movimentos de apropriacionismo e substitucionismo dos capitais industriais e financeiros, concebida por Goodman, Sorj e Wilkinson, (2008). A mobilização da teoria das convenções contribuiu sobremaneira para expressar as relações desse sistema, seus acordos e disputas através de suas convenções mobilizadas. Da mesma forma, o apoio nos trabalhos desenvolvidos por Storper (1997) e Stræt e Marsden (2006) foram essenciais para uma análise das convenções, em termos das qualidades dos alimentos. Os mercados de proximidade estudados, no caso as feiras de produtores de São Pedro e Rio Claro, representam sim espaços que permitem a construção de novas concepções em relação à qualidade dos alimentos. No caso de São Pedro, encontramos uma \'qualidade localizada\', onde a produção local, o conhecimento dos modos de fazer tradicionais, as receitas típicas e utilização de variedades nativas caracterizam a qualidade dos alimentos ofertados na feira. É uma qualidade com grande ancoragem em convenções domésticas e ecológicas, onde se misturam o cuidar da terra e aquele da família. Em Rio Claro, município com um perfil menos rural, ocorre um renascimento da produção local, tanto com produtores que sempre estiveram no setor quanto com \'novos agricultores\'. A qualidade encontrada ai é aquela de tipo \'especializada\', onde a diferenciação através da obtenção de selos de certificação estão se configurando como o caminho dessa feira. Assim, a qualidade do alimento processado é garantida pela especialização da produção e assegurada pelo SIM, implementado no município. Identificamos que o SIM, no caso específico dos estudos, não contemplam ou estimulam produções locais com qualidade diferenciada, reproduzindo sobremaneira convenções industriais levando a uma especialização das produções locais. / The central question of our study is to understand how the conceptions of food quality are formed, more specifically in the scope of the proximity markets, in the case, in the farmers market. This research had as a reference a recent change in the agrifood sector, identified mainly among European countries, the quality turn, which expresses an aesthetic criticism that opposes the standardization of consumption; an ecological principle that is designed against the impacts generated by the Green Revolution. Our research allowed us to observe a renaissance of the farmers markets, either by strengthening the importance of those already existing, or by creating new markets in the region of the urban agglomeration of Piracicaba. In this sense, we seek to analyze two case studies of proximity markets, identifying how they are organized and what values are attributed to them. With the same intention, we analyze the legal norms that affect both cases, through the Municipal Inspection System (MIS), in the understanding that these rules also express agreements and conceptions, which are socially constructed and disputed. We use theories such as the creation of the self-regulating market proposed by Polany (2012), the embbedeness of Granovetter\'s markets (2007) and the appropriationist and substitutionist movements of industrial and financial capitals, designed by Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson , (2008). The mobilization of the theory of conventions has greatly contributed to express the relations of this system, its agreements and disputes through its mobilized conventions. Similarly, support in the works developed by Storper (1997) and Stræt and Marsden (2006) were essential for an analysis of conventions in terms of food qualities. The proximity markets studied, in this case the farmers markets of São Pedro and Rio Claro, represent spaces that allow the construction of new conceptions regarding the quality of food. In the case of São Pedro, we find a \'localized quality\', where local production, knowledge of \"traditional ways of making\", typical recipes and use of native varieties characterize the quality of the foods offered at the farmers market. It is a quality with great anchorage in domestic and ecological conventions, where the care of the land and that of the family are mixed. In Rio Claro, a municipality with a less rural profile, there is a revival of local production, both with producers who have always been in the sector and with \'new farmers\'. The quality found there is that of the \'specialized\' type, where the differentiation through the obtaining certification stamps are being configured as the way. Thus, the quality of processed food is guaranteed by the specialization of production and ensured by the MIS, implemented in the municipality. We have identified that MIS, in the specific case of the studies, do not contemplate or stimulate local productions with differentiated quality, reproducing a lot of industrial conventions leading to a specialization of local productions.