12 pages, Food waste and food insecurity are two concurrent major public health issues. To address them, gleaning programs can reduce waste and enhance food security by diverting produce to food pantries. To understand the experiences of farmers and gleaning programs, interviews were completed with 12 farmers who had participated in a gleaning program and 16 farmers who had not donated produce through a gleaning program within the Greater Kansas City metro area. For farmers who had participated in the gleaning program, the ease of donating and tax incentives were primary benefits. Inadequate experience and inefficient volunteers were cited as challenges. Farmers without experience with gleaning programs cited safety and liability issues as concerns. Because farmers communicate frequently with other farmers, food rescue organizations should consider enlisting their support. Communities and government agencies should provide financial support to improve the resources and infrastructure of gleaning organizations to improve farmer-gleaner relationships.
13 pages, This article looks at the United States’ federal H-2A Temporary Agricultural Visa Program and reforms proposed by the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. In this policy analysis, we draw on media content analysis and qualitative interviews to compare the viewpoints of farmers, workers, grower and worker advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians. We find that perspectives on the program are dependent upon actors’ level of direct interaction with workers. Moderate-sized farmers and regionally based worker advocacy groups tend to be the most concerned with day-to-day program operations and fair working conditions. In contrast, national-level advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians are less critical of the program and seek to broadly expand farmer access to guestworkers, justifying proposed program reforms with discourses of national food security and immigration reform. Ultimately, we suggest that engaging a food systems lens to understand these policies provides a more nuanced perspective, addressing national food security and immigration as related issues.
32 pages., via online journal., The phrase in the title is not mine. I am borrowing it here from syndicated
columnist and cowboy poet Baxter Black, who borrowed the title of one
of his own columns “Growth of Agricultural Ignorance” from the editor of
the Delmarva Farmer (a weekly agricultural publication serving the Delaware,
Maryland, and Virginia region). In many ways I agree with the term, and
believe it is accurate in part to describe American society in the late twentieth
century and into the twenty-first. Thus, I would like to take this opportunity
to discuss some trends in American agriculture, and for that matter, agricultural history, and some concerns that I have about them. Not all the trends are bad, of course, and perhaps in some ways, at least, American society is less agriculturally ignorant than Black and others suggest.
10 pages, In this paper, we evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on farmers market (FM) sales across the United
States during the 2020 operating season using survey responses from 420 market managers. Using
a multinomial logit model, we evaluate how certain market characteristics are associated with increased probabilities of market organizations gaining or losing revenue in 2020. We find that
SNAP sales changes, market location, and COVID-19 intensity impacted revenue outcomes. State COVID-19 policies for FM and the existence of FM assistance organizations had less of an impact.
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