University of Minnesota, Duluth
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Communication and building social capital in community supported agriculture
No full textCommunity supported agriculture (CSA) schemes (programs) provide an alternative means for obtaining produce, through direct purchase from farms. They are also often driven by a vision of transforming the current mainstream food system and seek to build a community of people who support this vision. Social capital refers to the networks and ties between people and groups and the impact of these ties on access to influence, information, opportunity, and ability to organize. Social capital is built by CSAs and helps foster and stabilize the grassroots agricultural innovations that are needed for the development of sustainable food systems. Using the concept of social capital, we studied communication methods of four CSAs in the UK, examining the interactions between CSAs and their members and within each of their membership groups. We carried out in-depth interviews with 49 CSA members to establish what interactions they had with their CSA and with other members, and analyzed our data thematically to identify the characteristics of interactions that were important to participants. We consider how our research may benefit CSA organizations by enabling them to learn what their members want and to learn about the varied ways in which members conceptualize their experiences of community derived from their membership. We found that the various CSA communication strategies, which consist of frequent and varying virtual and face-to-face interactions, are able to promote development of both bridging and bonding social capital. Overall, there is a desire for social connection in CSA memberships. Furthermore, in CSAs where members can interact easily, there is potential for CSA membership to provide members with communication that is important as a source of both knowledge and social connection. CSAs can maximize both social capital and member satisfaction by using a range of communication media and methods to meet their members’ circumstances and preferences
Experiences of food insecurity among LGBTQIA+ college students in North Texas: Meaning, experiences, and recommendations for inclusive solutions
No full textThis ethnographic research explores the meaning and experiences of food insecurity among LGBTQIA+ college students to understand how identity might play a role in those experiences. We offer research-informed recommendations that student-serving programs could implement to increase accessibility and inclusivity for LGBTQIA+ students to reduce food insecurity. The study was conducted at a large, public, Tier 1 research university in North Texas. We used purposive sampling and recruited participants through emails and class announcements. We conducted 22 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with students who identified as LGBTQIA+. LGBTQIA+ students do not initially associate their food insecurity with their LGBTQIA+ identity, and many of their experiences are similar to non-LGBTQIA+ students. However, ongoing homophobia, stigma, and discrimination against people who identify as LGBTQIA+ can add additional anxiety and challenges that influence their experiences in ways that are different from non-LGBTQIA+ students. LGBTQIA+ students are at greater risk of losing family support, are more likely to seek emotional support from peers, and have increased anxiety about responses to their identity, which can affect their willingness to seek resources. Our results indicate that food insecurity has an emotional, mental, and physical impact on students, which impacts their academic success. As universities strive to be more welcoming to LGBTQIA+ students, we recommend services that will build community, create safe spaces, and strengthen trust for students to have a positive college experience
A snapshot of nutrition incentive adaptation during COVID-19: Consensus-building with practitioners
No full textExacerbated food insecurity has been among the many challenges presented by the emergence of the novel coronavirus 2019 in the United States. In the wake of the pandemic, expanded focus has turned to the capacities of established federal nutrition assistance programs and emergent nutrition access models to address these challenges. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-based incentive programs, or nutrition incentive programs, are an emergent model designed to provide financial incentives (additional funds) to limited-resource, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-enrolled shoppers to improve the affordability of fresh fruits and vegetables at farm-direct and other retail outlets. While policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders have advanced efforts to evaluate the overall impact and efficacy of nutrition incentive programs, much remains to be understood about how these programs operate under pandemic conditions and how effective they
have been at mitigating the associated increase in food hardship for limited-resource families.
To examine the salient factors influencing nutrition incentive program operations during the pandemic, we applied a three-round, online Delphi process with an expert panel (N=15) of nutrition incentive practitioners between May and October 2021, analyzing the data using thematic analysis and descriptive statistics. The panelists reached consensus on several barriers, opportunities, and innovative adaptations in incentive programming operations, both in the early stages of the pandemic outbreak and that may persist long-term. The findings—which include barriers such as “staff burnout and/or turnover,” opportunities such as “increased collaboration and networking between stakeholders,” and innovative adaptions such as “targeted expansion of SNAP/EBT eligibility”—have implications for the operational and adaptive capacities of SNAP-based incentive program practitioners over the next several years. We provide recommendations for both researchers and nutrition incentive practitioners with an emphasis on further exploring and operationalizing the long-term barrier, opportunity, and innovative adaptation findings to aid the continued development of nutrition incentive program resilience in preparation for future pandemic events or comparable food system shocks
“We need a better system”: Maryland crop growers’ perspectives on reducing food loss through donation
No full textThe donation of unharvested or unsold crops to rescue organizations has been promoted as a strategy to improve healthy food access for food insecure households while reducing production-level food loss and waste (FLW). In this study, we aimed to assess the motivations, barriers, and facilitators for crop donation as a FLW reduction strategy among Maryland farmers. We interviewed 18 Maryland-based food producers (nine frequent crop donors and nine infrequent, by self-report) in 2016 – 2017, soliciting their perspectives on crop donation motivators, process feasibility, and interventions aimed at increasing crop donation. The interviews were thematically coded. All respondents were aware of crop donation as an option, and most expressed interest in reducing FLW by diverting crop surpluses for human consumption. While financial barriers represented one aspect influencing donation decisions, respondents also cited convenience, process knowledge, and liability as key considerations. In contrast to frequent donors, many of whom considered donation a moral imperative, some infrequent donors questioned the expectation that they would donate crops without compensation. Both frequent and infrequent donors were aware of pro-donation tax incentives, and infrequent donors reported being unlikely to use them. This research demonstrates that crop donation motivations, barriers, and facilitators can be diverse. Given the existence of crop surpluses and their potential benefits as emergency food, our results suggest that multiple interventions and policies may contribute to incentivizing and facilitating crop donation (or enabling the purchase of surplus crops) rather than one-size-fits-all approaches. Our findings also highlight a need to prioritize crop recovery methods that enhance growers’ financial stability
Gospodarka 4.0? Nowe ujęcie teoretyczne rewolucji cyfrowej i jej konsekwencji dla długookresowego wzrostu
No full textAre we going through a Fourth Industrial Revolution or a technological breakthrough event of an entirely different nature? In this paper, based on the hardware-software framework [Growiec, 2022; Growiec, Jabłońska, Parteka, 2023], I identify the key differences between the technologies of the Industrial Revolution (expanding our capacity to perform physical action) and the Digital Revolution (expanding our capacity to process information). I discuss the implications of these technologies for long-run economic growth, technological progress and factor demand. I find that these implications depend on the possibility of full automation of production processes, the extent of technology spillovers in R&D, and the rate of technological decay. Full automation is disruptive because it makes human labour inessential for production, potentially leading to technological unemployment as well as growth acceleration. Under positive technology spillovers in R&D, technological progress and the accumulation of R&D capital can form a dual growth engine, sustaining exponential growth even under partial automation and without population growth. As an application of the theory, I overview the effects of specific existing and hypothetical digital-era technologies, from the Jacquard loom to artificial superintelligence, for the pace of long-run growth and predicted trends in employment and factor shares
Struktury organizacyjne centrów usług wspólnych – podejście oparte na ekonomii kosztów transakcyjnych
No full textThe article aims to analyse the transaction costs of creating Shared Services Centres (SSC) as exemplified by two private companies and the Government Administration Support Centre (COAR). Within the framework of an approach based on transaction cost economics, two hypotheses were formulated: (1) the more resources a company possesses, the more the enterprise strives to utilise these resources by establishing an SSC, and (2) the higher the strategic value of assets, the more justified a company’s focus is on maintaining and utilising them internally, concentrating them within the SSC. The qualitative analysis conducted, including partially structured interviews and contracts with the analysed entities, validated both hypotheses. Within the SSC, key issues were identified, such as ensuring high-quality services and their continuous improvement, reducing opportunism, measuring service quality, valuing the effects of the implemented contract, and establishing efektyweffective communication within the given structure. The applied solutions were diverse, and the study showed a significant impact of three factors – processes, relational mechanisms, and organisational structure – which together affect both categories of transaction costs: management, related to the adaptive decision-making process, and measurement, concerning the impact of information
From Brand to Prosperity: The Impact of Agricultural Regional Public Brands on Local Economic Growth in China
No full textThis study evaluates the economic impact of Agricultural Regional Public Brands (ARPBs) using panel data from 2,725 Chinese counties (2000- 2020). A difference-in-differences (DID) approach with fixed effects identifies the causal impact of ARPB adoption. Results show that ARPBs significantly enhance county-level GDP, especially in livestock-oriented regions with stronger industrial linkages. Mechanism analyses reveal that ARPBs promote economic growth by upgrading employment structures, facilitating urban-rural integration, and encouraging agricultural modernization. Regional heterogeneity suggests that eastern and central regions benefit more than western ones, likely due to infrastructure and market access differences. The effects of reducing the urban-rural income gap are limited. These findings provide policy-relevant insights into how place-based branding can promote inclusive rural development
Spillover Effects of Renewable Energy: Re-examining Wind Turbine Impacts on Crop Yields via U.S. Parcel-level Evidence
No full textAs renewable energy development accelerates, wind turbines are increasingly being installed on agricultural land, raising questions about their effects on crop production. This paper investigates the impact of wind turbine installations on agricultural productivity using a high-resolution dataset that combines parcel-level corn yield data with detailed information on wind turbine locations and weather characteristics. Using Difference-in-differences approach to address potential endogeneity, we find that parcels within an 8-kilometer radius of wind turbines experienced, on average, a 1% increase in corn yield after installation. These results suggest that localized microclimatic changes induced by turbines may improve growing conditions. Our findings highlight an overlooked positive externality of renewable energy infrastructure and underscore the importance of incorporating land-use interactions into energy policy and planning
Do Social Movements Benefit Local Minority Businesses? Evidence from BLM Protests
No full textThis paper investigates the economic impact of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement on minority-owned food service establishments (MFEs) in the United States. Leveraging establishment-level panel data from the National Establishment Time-Series (NETS) database and a novel county-level panel of BLM protest events from 2014 to 2022, we implement a stacked difference-in-differences framework to estimate causal effects. Our findings suggest that BLM protests led to a sustained and statistically significant increase in MFE sales, with the effects persisting and strengthening over time. The economic gains are most pronounced in areas with moderate protest activity and are primarily driven by small-scale MFEs. Our study highlights the longterm market influences of social movements and offers policy-relevant insights into how economic empowerment can be aligned with broader social justice efforts
Beyond the Cropland: The Impact of Conservation Reserve Program on Local Agribusiness Industry
No full textThe Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is one of the most important agrienvironmental policies in the United States. Farmers and landowners retire their land into vegetation cover and receive rental payments paid by the government. Although the program generates well-documented ecosystem benefits, there are debates about its potential negative impact on the local economy. This paper studies the distributional impact of the CRP program on the local agribusiness sector. By leveraging a detailed county-level panel dataset of agricultural expenses, we use an instrumental variable (IV) approach to identify the causal impact of the CRP enrollment acreage and local agricultural expenses. We find that an additional 10% increase in the acreage of CRP enrollment reduces local agricultural expenses by about 0.175% on average. This effect is robust in most regions and expense categories. We also find regional variations in the response between the Southeast and the Midwest