Print E-mail Measuring Current Consumption of Locally Grown Foods in Vermont: Methods for Baselines and Targets

Conner, David S.; Becot, Florence; Hoffer, Doug; Kahler, Ellen; Sawyer, Scott; Berlin, Linda

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2013.033.004

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Secondary data sources may not exist or may inadequately reflect conditions in the field, yet primary data collection is time-consuming and difficult and methods are not well established (Conner et al, 2013;O'Hara & Pirog, 2013). Moreover, many economic impact studies rely on faulty assumptions and tend to overstate economic impact, and proponents are often eager to tout these studies to support their positions (Eathington & Swenson, 2007;Swenson, 2006b).…”

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confidence: 99%

Critical Reflections on the USDA Local Food Economics Toolkit

Conner

Becot

Imrie

2017

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

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In this paper we report the results of a field test of an economic impact toolkit recently commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The toolkit was created as a guide for food systems organizations to frame issues and collect and analyze data in order to credibly measure economic and other benefits of their initiatives. To test the toolkit, we applied it to an economic contribution study of a local food-buying program in a large regional hospital in Vermont. Our findings indicate that by working with a dedicated and motivated community partner, we were able to agree on the scope and objectives of the project, obtain highquality data, and enter these data into an inputoutput model to measure broader economic contributions (Modules 1 though 6 of the toolkit). We experienced difficulty, however, in obtaining data from a sufficient number of the hospital's vendors to modify the model from its default settings to better reflect local food system actors' purchase patterns (the subject of Module 7). Our experience suggests that practitioners need to work with community partners and consider which stages of the analysis meet their project objectives; in particular, they should focus on the difficulty and expense of incorporating Module 7. Our implications focus on strategies for decreasing the cost and effort of data collection for Module 7.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Reflections on the USDA Local Food Economics Toolkit

Conner

Becot

Imrie

2017

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

Self Cite

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“…While complex research efforts have been undertaken to assess the scope and impacts of AFS in the global North (e.g., Bean Smith & Sharp, 2008;Conner, Becot, Hoffer, Kahler, Sawyer, & Berlin, 2013;Peters, Bills, Lembo, Wilkins, & Fick, 2009), our review of the literature suggests that knowledge gaps in this field persist with regard to the global South. In recent years, household conditions in particularly vulnerable groups have been examined in numerous isolated studies (e.g., Hadley, Linzer, Belachew, Mariam, Tessema, & Lindstrom, 2011;Oluoko-Odingo, 2011).…”

Section: Research Priorities: Global Southmentioning

confidence: 96%

Toward Alternative Food Systems Development: Exploring Limitations and Research Opportunities

Albrecht

Johnson

Hamann

et al. 2013

JAFSCD

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In recent years, interest in alternative food systems (AFS) has grown both in the popular imagination and in the academic literature. The literature is rife with justifications (or hopes) for the continued and necessary expansion of AFS in the face of unsustainable conventional food provisioning. Within the next five years it will be important to determine how to make alternatives more stable in order for them to play a more prominent role in battling the food insecurity and other social and economic challenges equated with agro-industrial foods. The goal of this commentary is to demonstrate some highly context-specific challenges and possible research trajectories in both the global South and the global North. We argue that in the global South more robust data collection can strengthen local food systems and traditional foods research, while in the global North, food skills and food literacy research may be important for scaling up and making alternative food systems more stable without compromising important social and economic ideals.

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“…We restrict our review to a set of quantitative studies with documented methodologies and assumptions that estimate the effect of local food sales on economic statistics, such as jobs or output. First, since establishing the overall level of local food consumption in a region is challenging (Conner, Becot, Hoffer, Kahler, Sawyer, & Berlin, 2013), some studies have estimated the regional economic impacts of specific local food market channels. Many of these studies have focused on farmers' markets, including studies of individual farmers' markets (McCarthy & Moon, 2012;Sadler, Clark, & Gilliland, 2013) or a collection of farmers' markets in a state (Henneberry, Whitacre, & Agustini, 2009;Hughes, Brown, Miller, & McConnell, 2008;Myles & Hood, 2010;Otto, 2010).…”

Section: What's Been Done?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Impacts of Local Food Systems: Future Research Priorities

O’Hara

Pirog

2013

JAFSCD

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The recent growth in local food markets has resulted in various local food economic impact assessments. However, drawing overarching conclusions from these studies is difficult. Data collection is challenging, and the handful of studies with transparent and well-defined methodologies have generally used data and modeling techniques with narrow geographic and market scope. While these studies have found positive regional economic impacts, the impacts have been modest, and many economic aspects of local food systems remain unexamined. To address these issues, Michigan State University's Center for Regional Food Systems and the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food & Environment Program hosted a meeting among economists and local food researchers in order to synthesize and translate the findings of existing studies for local food practitioners and policy-makers. In this document, we briefly review the types of studies that have been conducted, identify criteria by which the effectiveness of studies can be evaluated, and discuss future research opportunities. The collective understanding of the relationship between local foods and economic development can be enhanced through improving data collection, undertaking studies on larger geographic scales that explicitly incorporate changes in diet, quantifying other economic attributes of local food systems in addition to the number of jobs, and forming a learning community to review and critique studies of the economic, social, and environmental benefits of local food systems.

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Print E-mail Measuring Current Consumption of Locally Grown Foods in Vermont: Methods for Baselines and Targets

Cited by 11 publications

References 21 publications

Critical Reflections on the USDA Local Food Economics Toolkit

Critical Reflections on the USDA Local Food Economics Toolkit

Toward Alternative Food Systems Development: Exploring Limitations and Research Opportunities

Economic Impacts of Local Food Systems: Future Research Priorities

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