With the number of women farmers on the rise, questions circulate as to why this phenomenon is happening in a time when the overall numbers of farmers are declining. Following organic practices and being certified are getting increasingly popular in the farming community with women having greater visibility in the realm of sustainable agriculture than ever before. The basis of this study is to give women farmers who are either certified organic* or non-certified organic* a platform to tell their story and divulge barriers they face in their profession. Additionally, this study reflects on broader themes behind organic certification involving the participants’ motivations and values. The term organic can take on many meanings depending on who is being asked, so it is important to collect data on this subject straight from the source. By interviewing women who are making most of the decisions on their land clearer definitions will arise and help bridge the gap between personal meaning and perceived meaning. Their unique experiences with food and farming led them to a path that helps sustain local economies and helps local communities access a nutritious food. Their different experiences culminate in a discussion for a change in how food is valued and perceived. While their stories range in scope, they share similar themes and leave one concerned with the current state of the food chain and farm policy for local food systems

Many Americans are hungry, while others struggle to find healthy foods. What are communities doing to address this problem, and what should they be doing? Good Food, Strong Communities shares ideas and stories about efforts to improve food security in large urban areas of the United States by strengthening community food systems. It draws on five years of collaboration between a research team comprised of the University of Wisconsin, Growing Power, and the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and more than thirty organizations on the front lines of this work in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Madison, and Cedar Rapids. Here, activists and scholars talk about what’s working and what still needs to be done to ensure that everyone has access to readily available, affordable, appropriate, and acceptable food. The approach begins by laying out the basic principles of food security and food justice in light of the diversity of food system practices and innovations in America’s cities. The contributing authors address land access for urban agriculture, debates over city farming, new possibilities in food processing, and the marketing of healthy food. They put these basic elements—land, production, processing, and marketing—in the context of municipal policy, education, and food justice and sovereignty, particularly for people of color. While the path of a food product from its producer to its consumer may seem straightforward on the surface, the apparent simplicity hides the complex logistical—and value-laden—factors that create and maintain a food system. This book helps readers understand how a food system functions and how individual and community initiatives can lessen the problems associated with an industrialized food system.

This edited volume builds on existing alternative food initiatives and food movements research to explore how a systems approach can bring about health and well-being through enhanced collaboration. Chapters describe the myriad ways community-driven actors work to foster food systems that are socially just, embed food in local economies, regenerate the environment and actively engage citizens. Drawing on case studies, interviews and Participatory Action Research projects, the editors share the stories behind community-driven efforts to develop sustainable food systems, and present a critical assessment of both the tensions and the achievements of these initiatives. The volume is unique in its focus on approaches and methodologies that both support and recognize the value of community-based practices. Throughout the book the editors identify success stories, challenges and opportunities that link practitioner experience to critical debates in food studies, practice and policy. By making current practices visible to scholars, the volume speaks to people engaged in the co-creation of knowledge, and documents a crucial point in the evolution of a rapidly expanding and dynamic sustainable food systems movement. Entrenched food insecurity, climate change induced crop failures, rural-urban migration, escalating rates of malnutrition related diseases, and aging farm populations are increasingly common obstacles for communities around the world. Merging private, public and civil society spheres, the book gives voice to actors from across the sustainable food system movement including small businesses, not-for-profits, eaters, farmers and government. Insights into the potential for market restructuring, knowledge sharing, planning and bridging civic-political divides come from across Canada, the United States and Mexico, making this a key resource for policy-makers, students, citizens, and practitioners.

Using sustainable food value chain development (SFVCD) approaches to reduce poverty presents both great opportunities and daunting challenges. SFVCD requires a systems approach to identifying root problems, innovative thinking to find effective solutions and broad-based partnerships to implement programmes that have an impact at scale. In practice, however, a misunderstanding of its fundamental nature can easily result in value-chain projects having limited or non-sustainable impact. Furthermore, development practitioners around the world are learning valuable lessons from both failures and successes, but many of these are not well disseminated. This new set of handbooks aims to address these gaps by providing practical guidance on SFVCD to a target audience of policy-makers, project designers and field practitioners. This first handbook provides a solid conceptual foundation on which to build the subsequent handbooks. It (1) clearly defines the concept of a sustainable food value chain; (2) presents and discusses a development paradigm that integrates the multidimensional concepts of sustainability and value added; (3) presents, discusses and illustrates ten principles that underlie SFVCD; and (4) discusses the potential and limitations of using the value-chain concept in food-systems development. By doing so, the handbook makes a strong case for placing SFVCD at the heart of any strategy aimed at reducing poverty and hunger in the long run.

In May 1967, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort. Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern Black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.

Land, Value, Community provides an in-depth critical study of the theories of J. Baird Callicott, one of the world's foremost environmental philosophers. An international group of scholars representing philosophy, ecology, ecofeminism, Native American studies, political science, and religion studies critically assesses Callicott's contributions to environmental ethics and philosophy and presents alternative perspectives from their own work. Each section consists of several authors focusing on one aspect of Callicott's thought, raising questions not only for Callicott but also for anyone affected by environmental issues. A noteworthy feature of the book is Callicott's own response to his critics. This volume allows readers to explore multiple avenues in their search for answers to the significant philosophical questions raised by environmental problems.

This book examines a diverse range of community food initiatives in light of their everyday practices, innovations, and contestations. While community food initiatives aim to tackle issues like food security, food waste, or food poverty, it is a cause for concern for many when they are framed as the next big "solution" to the problems of the current industrialised food system. They have been critiqued for being too neoliberal, elitist, and localist; for not challenging structural inequalities (e.g. racism, privilege, exclusion, colonialism, capitalism); and for reproducing these inequalities within their own contexts. This edited volume examines the everyday realities of community food initiatives, focusing on both their hopes and their troubles, their limitations and failures, but also their best intentions, missions, and models, alongside their capacity to create hope in difficult times. The stories presented in this book are grounded in contemporary theoretical debates on neoliberalism, diverse economies, food justice, community and inclusion, and social innovation, and help to sharpen these as conceptual tools for interrogating community food initiatives as sites of both hope and trouble. The novelty of this volume is its focus on the everyday doings of these initiatives in particular places and contexts, with different constraints and opportunities. This grounded, relational, and place-based approach allows us to move beyond more traditional framings in which community food initiatives are either applauded for their potential or criticized for their limitations. It enables researchers and practitioners to explore how community food initiatives can realize their potential for creating alternative food futures and generates innovative pathways for theorising the mutual interplay of food production and consumption. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical food studies, food security, public health, and nutrition as well as human geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in food.