17 pages, Little is known about how farms and markets are connected. Identifying critical gaps and central hubs in food systems is of importance in addressing a variety of concerns, such as navigating rapid shifts in marketing practices as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and related food shortages. The constellation of growers and markets can also reinforce opportunities to shift growing and eating policies and practices with attention to addressing racial and income inequities in food system ownership and access. With this research, we compare network methods for measuring centrality and sociospatial orientations in food systems using two of America’s most high-producing agricultural counties. Though the counties are adjacent, we demonstrate that their community food systems have little overlap in contributing farms and markets. Our findings show that the community food system for Yolo County is tightly interwoven with Bay Area restaurants and farmers’ markets. The adjacent county, Sacramento, branded itself as America’s Farm-to-Fork capital in 2012 and possesses network hubs focused more on grocery stores and restaurants. In both counties, the most central actors differ and have been involved with the community food system for decades. Such findings have implications beyond the case studies, and we conclude with considerations for how our methods could be standardized in the national agricultural census.
2pgs, For farmers, filling out the USDA’s Census of Agriculture before the February 6 deadline is more than a legal obligation. It’s a way to keep watch over our farmlands and help bring about necessary changes.
14pgs, The adoption of soil conservation practices by farmers offers the potential to greatly improve soil health and water quality at large geographic scales. In considering the potential benefits of soil conservation practices to improve ecological outcomes on farms, it is important to ascertain where farmers get their information about soil conservation and what type of information they are exposed to and by whom. One primary way that farmers learn about soil conservation practices is via agricultural trade publications (ATPs). We conducted a content analysis using a computational text analysis method to analyze all the online soil conservation coverage from four influential ATPs in Wisconsin. We focused on 10 different soil conservation practices and found that the most frequently covered soil conservation practices were tillage, manure, and grazing. Additionally, we analyzed the thematic categories for how each soil conservation practice was covered in terms of agricultural, environmental and economic benefits. Generally, articles tended to mention environmental and economic benefits more than agricultural benefits across all soil conservation practices. We also unpacked the subcategories of environmental benefits using cover crops practice as an example to demonstrate how it was covered in terms of subcategories such as biodiversity, sustainability, climate change, water quality, and soil health. Our analysis also looked at how agricultural technology was featured in the stories about soil conservation and found that this category was regularly mentioned for each practice. Finally, we examined the message sources for stories on soil conservation and found that extension and the federal government were the most the frequently cited entities. We also discussed how this form of computational content analysis can provide longitudinal insights about trends in a particular soil conservation practice like cover crops, which showed a clear upward trend in coverage in ATPs for the time period studied. These nuanced content analyses provide insights into what types of thematic categories are featured about soil conservation practices covered in ATPs in Wisconsin. Advocates of soil conservation practices can use our results to determine if some practices could benefit from more attention in ATPs as well as which benefits and themes have received more media coverage. Additionally, stakeholders from entities that serve as different message sources can determine how their organizations are doing as the spokespeople for the soil conservation practices being advocated.
