Food policy groups (FPG) have emerged in the United States (U.S.) to create healthy, resilient and sustainable food systems. There is a lack of research about FPG in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This M.S. thesis describes a mixed-methods study that investigated the structure, issue framing, activities and priorities of diverse FPG in Virginia to develop a healthy, resilient and sustainable food system framed around three research objectives. Objective one used a scoping review to inventory and visually map the location of Virginia's FPG. Objective two administered a validated, online questionnaire to document activities related to organizational capacity, social capital, context, effectiveness, and community outcomes. Objective three used a semi-structured interview guide to explore stakeholders' views about opportunities and challenges to align diverse FPG priorities and interests. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were transcribed, hand-coded, and analyzed for emergent themes. Results found that 58% of FPG (n=32/55) are located cities around universities (i.e., Richmond, Blacksburg and Charlottesville), and fewer located in rural counties with higher health outcomes. A majority (75%, n=12/16) operated on annual budget less than $50,000. A third (37.5%, n=6/16) reported food system resilience work and 50% (n=8/16) reported sustainability work. Stakeholders (n=11) reported collaboration as a mutual interest and necessary to address systemic challenges and all interviewed FPG (n=11) reported sustainable funding as a major challenge. The results of this study may inform future policies for Virginia's FPG to support a healthy, resilient and sustainable food system at local, state and national levels. / Master of Science / Since the 1980s, food policy groups (FPG) including councils, networks and coalitions in the United States (U.S.) and other countries have emerged to address food system issues such as food insecurity, food access, diet-related chronic diseases, the environmental impacts agricultural systems, poverty and economic development in communities. In 2016, 411 FPG were active in the U.S. and Canada to create healthy, resilient and sustainable food systems. There is a lack of research about FPG in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This M.S. thesis describes a study design to investigate how the structure, issue framing, activities and priorities of diverse FPG in Virginia can develop a healthy, resilient and sustainable food system. Results found that 58% of FPG (n=32/55) are located cities around universities (i.e., Richmond, Blacksburg and Charlottesville), and fewer located in rural counties with higher health outcomes. A majority (75%, n=12/16) operated on annual budget less than $50,000. A third (37.5%, n=6/16) reported food system resilience work and 50% (n=8/16) reported sustainability work. Stakeholders (n=11) reported collaboration as a mutual interest and necessary to address systemic challenge and all interviewed FPG (n=11) reported sustainable funding as a major challenge. The results of this study may inform future policies for Virginia’s FPG to support a healthy, resilient and sustainable food system at local, state and national levels.

Home gardening has historically been a subsistence or supplemental form of food procurement worldwide and promoted as a food security project in times of economic hardship. Qualitative research was used to investigate container gardening's potential to provide the impetus for further agricultural activities within low-income, low-food-access, rural Appalachian Virginia, thereby impacting community food security, food choices of individuals, and the local food system. Ethnography and phenomenology methodologies were used through the lens of community-engaged research, and the lived experiences of participants were recognized as valid representations of food insecurity. Semi-structured interviews with fourteen participating households revealed program involvement was deeply connected to previous food production experiences and fueled by existing interest in home gardening. Containers were valued as providing alternative modes to continue a meaningful practice, specifically mitigating challenges of limited mobility for the elderly. As rural areas are experiencing an outmigration of young people and struggling social services, container gardening could be utilized as a low-cost culturally appropriate mental- and nutritional-health service for the rural elderly. Similar initiatives should begin with appreciative inquiry into existing perceptions, values, assets, and potentials within a target community. Through preliminary investigation, needs and barriers can be acknowledged and community-identified solutions can be implemented through culturally sensitive program development. With the existing impetus for home gardening in the region, program expansion could potentially impact food security and the local food system. Overall, this case study serves to further endorse a public effort to support home food production in rural areas of the United States. / Master of Science

<p dir="ltr">Scholars and activists in the fields of food justice and policy believe that our food system needs changing because it is unjust, unhealthy, and incapable of addressing the needs of consumers, especially poorer and more vulnerable consumers. But policy change has been halting at every level, from local to global. The emerging concept of food literacy is a promising avenue to improve health equity and achieve food justice. Food movements around the world have played a key role in organizing education campaigns for children and adults to improve food-related knowledge and behavior. However, political scientists have yet to fully explore 1) what strategies successful food movements use to get food literacy initiatives adopted, and 2) how adoption strategies and food literacy initiatives vary across countries with different food practices, policy processes, and cultural expectations about food and dining practices. This dissertation seeks to answer these questions through a comparative study of local-level youth food literacy initiatives inspired by Farm to School and Slow Food, leading food movements in the U.S. and Italy. Through qualitative interviews with key actors involved in food education and procurement, I explore the meaning of food literacy and how actors in the U.S. and Italy are using food education to expand knowledge of local food systems and, ultimately, to change those food systems. I find that to actors in both countries, food literacy means the knowledge that can help us understand and judge the complex interdependence between the processes, resources, and actors involved in producing and marketing the food we eat every day. Food literacy also empowers civic engagement: it can transform food consumers who want to see change into citizens who feel entitled to demand institutional change. The forms of governance usually seen in this context consist in voluntary, decentralized, local-level partnerships between local government and schools, civil society, food movement activists/volunteers, and local farmers.</p>

As societies embrace notions of sustainability, there is an increasing interest in how to best educate students about these concepts. The field of sustainability education (SE) is an approach that has been developed to address this concern. SE frameworks seek to integrate into curricular contents and formats within campus learning environments, in order to systematically improve upon approaches and services developed to support student learning and development. My research offers insight into the relationships between the philosophical principles and praxes of sustainability education, with the aim to inform educators on how best to prepare students to address complex sustainability issues. I used three cases of University of Vermont courses and programs to explore theoretical and practical factors related to sustainability education and food systems, as follows: 1) a comparative analysis of Education for Sustainability (EfS) together with Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Education, 2) an integration of High Impact Educational Practices (HIEP) with the field of agroecology education, and 3) an in-depth program analysis that examined the role of HIEP in engaged learning alongside the EfS framework. I drew from two action research (AR) traditions that determine particular research methodologies for applied social research settings. The first is a systems approach to organizational learning, and the second is teacher research for curricular and program development. I also engaged in utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) with program stakeholders. Research methods included applied social and mixed methods associated with program evaluation. Three main research implications include: a) Agroecology education in experiential, immersion environments can serve as a primary vehicle for sustainability education; b) sequencing of food systems and sustainability curricula can lead to transformative learning; and c) AR and UFE can serve as tools for program development alongside sustainability education frameworks.

According to popular and academic sources, home cooking is in decline. Nutrition and public health scholars concern that a loss of cooking abilities may diminish individuals' control over their food choices, thus contributing to poor health outcomes. Yet, there are still many unanswered questions. What skills, strategies, and knowledge sets are required to cook a meal on any given occasion? What capacity separates those who cook with ease from those who struggle to incorporate cooking into their daily routines? I propose that this difference is determined by an individual's capacity to employ a range of cognitive and technical skills related to meal preparation. I call this capacity 'food agency'. Drawing upon discourses of human agency developed in the social sciences, this food-specific theory considers how a home cook employs cognitive skills and sensory perceptions, while navigating'and shaping'various societal structures (e.g., schedule, budget, transportation, etc.) in the course of preparing a meal. Thus, to have food agency is to be empowered to act throughout the course of planning and preparing meals. To better understand the form and function of food agency in everyday contexts, this thesis has pursued two ethnographic explorations. The first study explored food agency from the vantage of routine performance by looking at the everyday practices of twenty-seven home cooks in the Northeastern United States. Data was collected through videotaping and observing the home cooks as they prepared typical dinnertime meals, followed-up with semi-structured interviews. The data has revealed a working model of the interrelated components seen as essential to consistent cooking practice, and thus to food agency'a conglomeration of skills, techniques, and strategies; structural and sensory guidelines; confidence and self-efficacy. All the home cooks were found to possess a basic scaffolding for food agency, yet the degree to which each had developed fluency in any given area was contingent upon personal experience. This supports the view that food agency is an actively acquired and dynamic capacity best understood as fluid rather than dichotomous. The second study explored food agency through guided progression, by following a cohort of eight college students at the University of Vermont as they learned how to cook during a semester-long food and culture course. Data was collected through videotaping the students as they cooked, and by interviewing them about their food behaviors and experiences at the beginning and end of the semester. The findings outlined the students' various trajectories as they progressed in many of the component areas involved in food agency'for example, skills, techniques, organizational strategies, sensory engagement, and a sense of individual and collective efficacy around meal preparation. While the longitudinal scope of this study was limited, these results suggest a need to develop similar curricula for hands-on cooking interventions that can be offered in a more diverse range of settings and contexts.

Vermont is widely-regarded as a hub for artisan cheese production, with more cheesemakers per capita than any other US state. Despite significant local and statewide support, out-of-state markets are essential to the long-term success of these small-scale producers. In spatially extended supply chains, retailers occupy a pivotal position. This thesis aims to examine the intermediary role of retailers in building social networks between producers and consumers. Consumers appreciate Vermont artisan cheese, in part, because it is embedded in a complex network of social values and relations related to where and how it is produced. Guided by social theories of consumption, sensory experience, and exchange, a transdisciplinary, mixed-methods study was conducted in order to better understand cheese retailers' role in this network. First, participant observation and ethnographic interviews at a specialty cheese shop demonstrated how highly specialized cheese retail professionals (known as a cheesemongers) communicate social information about Vermont artisan cheese to consumers in practice. Specialized narratives are transmitted to consumers through in-store signage and social interactions. These stories also involve the cheesemonger as traveler, developing specialized knowledge of Vermont artisan cheese by traveling to the place of production. A second site of participant observation at a national conference for artisan cheese professionals added breadth to the study. While cheesemongers appear to agree that a certain level of intrinsic quality is necessary for consumer acceptance and preference, many also see the importance of, and derive pleasure from, knowing and conveying the social story, and perceive this to be an important part of their professional role and identity. Second, social network analysis provided a broader examination of relationships between Vermont artisan cheesemakers and retailers in the region. In order to collect data on these relationships, an online survey was distributed to Vermont artisan cheesemakers and follow-up phone calls were conducted. A combination of statistical and network analyses was used to visualize the social structure of the network, identify key actors, and examine qualities of the relationships. The findings suggest that the social network for Vermont artisan cheese is a multiplex system, in which a cheesemaker's relative position in the network is the result of a complex balance--and sometimes compromise--between a cheesemaker's needs, goals, and desires and their various retailers' needs, goals, and desires. Moreover, geographic proximity, time, experience, convenience, cost, history, loyalty, and regard all appear to be important factors in the type of relationship cheesemakers have with retailers, and whether a relationship is established at all.

The work described herein is situated in a larger study investigating regional food systems as a method for improving food access for vulnerable communities. This research is part of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative project titled Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast for Underserved Populations (EFSNE). This work is ongoing and currently in year five of five. One of the primary objectives in year five is to facilitate the development of Learning Communities in each of the eight communities participating in the study. To do so, the research team planned to develop tools and strategies for facilitation. The team identified a need to match strategies to the specific situation of each community. Thus, a tool was identified that might be useful in assessing the needs and readiness of the communities with respect to their access to healthy food sources. This research simultaneously evaluated the usefulness of the tool while assessing community readiness in six of the eight project communities. The tool used in this study, was a community level behavioral change model, the Community Readiness Model (CRM). The model was originally developed by the Tri-Ethnic Center in Colorado. We followed the CRM protocol for identifying participants. Twenty-four individuals from six locations involved in the EFSNE study participated in the interview process. The interviews were conducted using the semi-structured interview guide provided in the CRM protocol. We amended the guide by tailoring questions to address food access and ensuring questions were asked at the five levels of influence found in the Socio-Ecological Model. The final guide contained 40 questions; 18 were required by the protocol to score each community. Interviews were conducted by telephone by one researcher, transcribed, and then scored by two researchers according to the CRM protocol. The mean overall readiness score for the six communities assessed was 4.9 (SD 1.0). This score is firmly rooted in the pre-planning stage of readiness. Scores ranged from 3.7 to 6.2 on the 9-point scale. The CRM scoring protocol coupled with the overall readiness scores indicated that the three urban communities scored higher (mean 5.7, SD 0.6) than the three rural communities (mean 4.1, SD 0.7). While we found a utility to having scores on a continuum to quickly assess the communities of study, we found the qualitative data obtained from the interview process imperative to understanding the scores and the communities. We concluded that with a few amendments, the Community Readiness Model is a useful methodology to understand food access at the community level. Revealing the stages of readiness for food access change in the study communities contributed to our understanding of what types of programs exist for food access, what the communities' attitudes and feelings are around food access and guided strategy development for moving readiness for change forward. This lens also revealed that there is a need for education on existing and development of new food access policies. Furthermore, this work contributes to the practice of assessing community food security while simultaneously contributing to the development of parameters for community food security theory in food systems scholarship.

O agronegócio expressa-se de múltiplas formas e tem repercussões nos sistemas alimentares e no comportamento das populações locais e globais. As estimativas sugerem que o Brasil se tornará o maior produtor mundial de alimentos nas próximas décadas. Assim, cumpre-se examinar as commodities agrícolas brasileiras e analisar as diferentes mudanças temporais e geográficas relacionadas à produção e ao consumo de alimentos no país. Com vistas a apresentar uma investigação científica que contribua para a construção do conhecimento da dinâmica da produção e do consumo de alimentos no Brasil, esta tese inclui pesquisas interdisciplinares que fornecem análises complementares para o tema proposto. O objetivo principal deste estudo é composto por dois aspectos que envolvem os sistemas agroalimentares e as suas dinâmicas. O primeiro refere-se à produção de alimentos no Brasil – especificamente como as diferentes expressões do agronegócio na produção agrícola e pecuária evoluíram – enquanto o segundo aspecto analisa como a população brasileira mudou seus padrões alimentares. Assim, a tese examina a participação da região do Centro-Oeste brasileiro na alteração da distribuição da produção agrícola brasileira. Os movimentos dos pontos médios geográficos dos principais produtos agrícolas brasileiros, ocorridos entre 1990 e 2015, parecem corresponder às mudanças geográficas ocorridas na produção agrícola e no uso da terra desta região durante o período analisado. Esta pesquisa também apresenta as mudanças geográficas relacionadas ao agronegócio brasileiro e discute como elas se refletem nos padrões alimentares de sua população, assim como na heterogeneidade da aquisição de alimentos entre os estados brasileiros. A relação entre o agronegócio e a sustentabilidade é necessária para melhorar a produção e a acessibilidade aos alimentos e preservar os recursos naturais. Nesse sentido, são necessários novos modelos de consumo e cadeias sustentáveis de suprimentos de alimentos para mitigar este problema. A análise fenomenológica realizada neste trabalho pode oferecer uma visão do agronegócio às partes interessadas, no que diz respeito ao panorama dos principais produtos que podem impulsionar o desenvolvimento sustentável da agricultura brasileira.

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Organics recycling is increasing in New England as multiple states have enacted laws to divert organic materials, including food scraps and food processing residuals, away from landfills. Anaerobic digesters on dairy farms represent an attractive approach to food waste recycling because existing infrastructure is in place and co-digestion of dairy manure with food waste can increase renewable biogas production. In addition, anaerobic digestion results in effluents that can be separated into solid and liquid residual materials, or 'digestates'. Screw-press separated solids consist of lignocellulosic biomass resistant to microbial degradation during anaerobic digestion. These separated solids are typically recycled on farms as animal bedding before returning to the digester, whereas remaining liquid digestates are typically spread as fertilizer for nearby feed crops or pasture fields. Within this model, anaerobic digestion is not a nutrient management solution and repeated land application of digestate nutrients can create eutrophication risk over time. Alternative models are needed where digestate materials are converted into valuable products to be sold off-farm, enabling the removal of nutrients to help meet nutrient management goals. In this thesis, I address two research questions related to the pursuit of such alternative models. First, how do physicochemical characteristics of digestate materials vary across full-scale systems in the region, including systems with and without food waste as a substantial proportion of feedstock, and how do these variations affect the potential for conversion of digestates into valuable products (e.g., soil amendments)? Second, can separated digestate solids be used for commercial cultivation of gourmet oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) to produce food for human consumption, providing synchronous nutrient recovery and food production? Results from my first research chapter indicate that increasing food waste inputs (and thus diversification of feedstock recipes) will likely increase the variability of some solid and liquid digestate characteristics and can result in greater contamination with synthetic particles, with implications for nutrient recovery efforts and associated products. My second research chapter shows that screw-press separated digestate solids can offset non-local substrate ingredients to a degree while achieving oyster mushroom yields comparable to commercial recipes. Furthermore, this strategy could divert nutrients away from land adjacent to digesters and directly into safe, nutritious, protein-rich food for humans, while also producing a useful spent mushroom substrate product.