Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

Food system resilience: Identifying regional community assets through an asset-based community development (ABCD) approach

2026-11-10T03:32:27+00:00

New Zealand food systems are experiencing major challenges for food security, health, and environmental sustainability. Exacerbating their ongoing difficulties, on February 14, 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle struck the Hawke’s Bay region on New Zealand’s North Island, revealing further critical vulnerabilities in regional food systems including food distribution, which increased food insecurity. The storm highlighted the need for food system resilience strategies, raising the question: “How can applying the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) framework identify regional food-system assets and map their alignment with stakeholder challenges and aspirations for food system resilience?” This study applied the ABCD framework and a stakeholder perspective to generate a regional asset inventory.

This study draws on the same interview dataset as a previously published cognitive-mapping analysis of the Hawke’s Bay food system (Kearns-Steed et al., 2025), applying a different analytical framework to address a different research question. Seventeen stakeholders from multiple sectors were interviewed, and 69 unique assets were identified. The most significant challenge was the lack of a local distribution system, with 41% of stakeholders reporting issues in the transportation sector. Eighty-eight percent of stakeholders expressed aspirations focused on enhancing organizational productivity and fostering a resilient food system, with 27% advocating for more community gardens. The analysis identified a wide range of community assets and mapped them against challenges and aspirations articulated by community leaders. It also noted stakeholder willingness to collaborate toward improving the community. These findings suggested ways to develop potential intervention pathways. Future research should implement and evaluate these strategies to validate effectiveness and scalability in similar regional settings.

Growing green: An investigation into local government planning for agriculture in North Carolina

2026-11-09T20:24:18+00:00

Community planning has long grappled with how to effectively integrate food and agriculture systems alongside community development (Pothukuchi & Kaufman, 2000). Despite this, localized food systems are becoming increasingly recognized as a strategy for addressing social, sustainability, and resilience goals surrounding climate change, public health, and local economies (Brinkmeyer et al., 2023; Enthoven & Van den Broeck, 2021; Hunter et al., 2022). With the loss of farmland to urban expansion, there is a clear need to incorporate agriculture into land-use planning. This study assesses how local government planners in North Carolina, a state with deep agricultural ties and experiencing significant urban growth, perceive food and agriculture’s role in their communities. A convergent mixed-method questionnaire was distributed to local government planners across the state to explore how planners perceive and interact with both local food and agricultural systems. Findings show that planners interact with these systems a “moderate amount” and generally perceive agriculture as a net benefit for their communities by acknowledging the social, economic, and environmental functions of these systems. While participants acknowledged the value of food and agriculture, participants reported needing resources and partnerships to better plan for food and agricultural systems in their communities. While focused on North Carolina, this study offers several takeaways for practicing planners more widely. Participants shared strategies on how local governments can actively develop and implement policies that embed food and agriculture systems into developments such as through subdivisions and other methods. By exploring different strategies, planners can bridge the gap between their understanding of the importance of food and agriculture and tangible outcomes for their communities.

Peace through prosperity

2026-11-09T20:09:14+00:00

What if peace is not simply the absence of war, but the presence of dignity, opportunity, food security and hope?

Across Africa and beyond, peace is often discussed in terms of conflict prevention, security, political agreements, and institutional stability. These are indispensable, but they are not enough. A ceasefire can stop violence and a peace agreement can end a war, yet neither guarantees that a young person will have a future, that a woman can build an independent livelihood, or that a family will have reliable access to food. This raises a deeper question: Can sustainable peace exist without economic and social conditions that allow people to live with dignity and hope?

I believe the answer is no.

The legacy of the Algerian Emir Abdelkader (1808-1883) offers a powerful starting point for reflection. Remembered primarily as a nineteenth-century resistance leader, Abdelkader’s legacy extends far beyond the battlefield. His actions reflected principles of human dignity, solidarity, self-reliance, and peaceful coexistence that remain relevant to contemporary debates about development and peace. The challenge is not to portray Abdelkader as a precursor of modern development theory, but to ask what his example can teach us about the societies we need to build if peace is to become durable.

Strategies and Considerations for Measuring the Impact of Short Value Chains

2026-11-09T19:10:08+00:00

First paragraph:

While the economic impact of conventional supply chains is well known and modeled, short value chains (SVCs) are often neglected for their smaller scale. SVCs often prioritize local economic development, access to fresh produce, and fairness in the food system over maximizing economic efficiency. Identifying, assessing, and communicating SVC impact requires attention to local actors and appropriate data collection and analysis methods. Over the last decade, several tools and resources, including those listed below, have been developed that enable coordinators and other stakeholders to assess the impacts of their local food activities and to advocate for resources to support the continued development of SVCs. . . .

THE ECONOMIC PAMPHLETEER Small farms, large farms; family farms, corporate farms; complex or complicated: Does it matter?

2026-11-09T19:01:50+00:00

First paragraphs:

I have long been an advocate for small family farms. Does that make me biased? No more so than the vast majority of agricultural economists who advocate large industrial farms. They prioritize production and profitability. I prioritize ecological, social, and economic sustainability. We naturally reach different conclusions. They conclude that only large, industrial farms can meet the needs of a growing global population. I conclude that only small family farms can meet everyone’s needs today and leave equal or better opportunities for the future.

We also have different ideas about how to define farm size and family farms. Size cannot be captured by the single indicators, such as land used or capital invested, employee numbers, or value of production, used by economists and government agencies. A farm includes all of the financial, human, and natural resources that are planned, organized, directed, and controlled as a single management unit. Some farm resources may come from off-farm sources, such as rented land, borrowed money, hired labor, buildings, and machinery. However, once the farm manager has the authority to decide how these resources will be used, they become part of the farm management unit. . . .

The sustainability paradox: Experiences of farmers in Vermont

2026-11-06T19:56:24+00:00

Concepts of sustainability have been used for decades as goals for agriculture and food systems, with the 3-legged stool (social, economic, and environmental) as a common model. Other models include the Donut Model, which posits a zone where human needs are met without sacrificing environmental integrity, and the Planetary Boundary model, which identifies specific areas of environmental danger. While these models highlight critical issues and trade-offs, few studies center the farmers’ perspectives and their efforts to contribute to sustainability goals and outcomes. Our farmer-research partners expressed that the conceptualizations of sustainability that ground our research were problematic and were denials of ecological and social-economic precarity. We explore these issues in dialogue with our farmer participants to question the existing paradigm of agricultural sustainability and its implications. Our research fosters dialogue between researchers and farmers on how to move forward. When we study sustainability, does the neoliberal tendency to focus on the individual (farm) rather than our entire food system disproportionately blame the farmer for agricultural unsustainability, absolving society, policy, and financialization of agriculture? How could food-system researchers reorient definitions and goals of sustainability to help policy makers and the public recognize the dire state of our farms and food systems? Interviews with farmers at six consumer- facing Vermont farms focused on how farmers understand, measure, and utilize concepts of sustainability in farm management. All farmers described barriers to contributing to the goals of sustainability while remaining economically viable and expressed that these problems are difficult or are stigmatized to talk about. We examine the impacts on the well-being of farmers who find deep meaning in sustainability goals but experience cognitive and practical dissonance when they realize that they cannot achieve these aims. We call for scholars and outreach professionals to revisit and reframe the concept of sustainability and its central role in agriculture and food systems. This research was a part of the Sustainability Metrics research project within the Food Systems Research Institute.

IN THIS ISSUE: Toward sustainable diets

2026-10-19T03:44:53+00:00

First paragraphs:

In this issue, we explore the emerging food systems subfield of sustainable diets, with a focus on community needs and aspirations, especially among vulnerable populations. First coined by Gussow and Clancy (1986), the JAFSCD Sustainable Diets Editorial Circle (SDEC) defines the term sustainable diets as dietary patterns that promote individual and population health and well-being while having low environmental impacts; are culturally affirming, affordable, safe, nutritionally robust, and attainable for all; and contribute to resilient, equitable, and sustainable food systems for present and future generations. This definition is adapted from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (FAO & WHO, 2019).

Reflecting the sustainable diets theme, our cover features community members in Nunavik, Northern Québec, Canada, mapping food sources and pathways and exploring household food-access decisions under different scenarios. Read more in Challenges and complexities in Northern food systems: Mapping food access and decision-making in Nunavik by Samantha Farquhar and colleagues. . . .

VALUE CHAIN COORDINATION COLUMN: Bridging margin and mission

2026-10-15T17:40:35+00:00

First paragraphs:

My local grocery cooperative has an informal motto of “No Margin, No Mission.” This pithy expression, likely familiar to many JAFSCD readers and community development practitioners, is a catchy shorthand for the financial reality that business viability is a necessary prerequisite for fulfilling an organization’s social and/or environmental mission (Diamond & Barham, 2011). Working in local and regional food systems, I find this simple mantra helpfully summarizes the dual-bottom-line challenge of supporting thriving, resilient regional food economies that can simultaneously support farmers, their environment, and the communities they feed.

Value chains are food supply chains that link agricultural producers with markets, adding economic value throughout. As I have written in this column previously (Hall et al., 2026), value chains may also prioritize the core mission of farm viability, ecological sustainability, and access to healthy foods or other community benefits. Value chains are facilitated by relational infrastructure, provided by networks of coordinators that hold strategic partnerships and actively foster win-win relationships across participants within the supply chain. Value chains struggle to perform, however, unless the businesses along the chain are fiscally functional and the relational infrastructure connecting them is adequately resourced. The relationship runs both ways: coordination helps enable fair returns, and those returns in turn sustain the businesses and relationships that create further value. . . .

Identifying characteristics of first-time use of charitable community food resources during the COVID-19 pandemic

2026-10-07T21:08:27+00:00

While national trends in food insecurity prevalence were unchanged in the early COVID-19 pandemic, evidence suggests that millions of people sought food assistance from charitable community sources for the first time during this period. Understanding the characteristics of first-time users of charitable community food resources may inform future emergency food system responses. This study aimed to identify sociodemographic, household, and food access–related factors associated with first-time use of charitable community food resources among low-wage workers in 2020. We conducted a secondary analysis of 2020 data from the Wage$ Study, a cohort of low-wage workers in Raleigh, North Carolina (NC), and Minneapolis, Minnesota (MN). Participants (N = 565) reported their sociodemographic characteristics, experiences of personal and household hardships, food access disruptions, participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and use of charitable community food resources (defined as food pantries and soup kitchens) during stay-at-home orders from March 2020 to June 2020. To examine multilevel factors associated with first-time use of charitable community food resources, we used descriptive statistics, classification tree analysis, and logistic regression. The prevalence of first-time use of charitable community food resources was 29.0%. Classification tree analysis identified older age, race/ethnicity, receipt of church assistance, and encountering out-of-stock foods at one’s local grocery store as key factors associated with first-time use. Logistic regression revealed that SNAP participants had higher odds of first-time community resource use compared with nonparticipants. Charitable food programs were important for low-wage workers experiencing barriers to food access during the early pandemic. Strengthening both charitable food systems and federal nutrition programs may improve emergency food access during future crises.

Agricultural knowledge, place, and production in The Almond Paradox

2026-10-03T23:36:12+00:00

First paragraphs:

Almonds are a controversial crop in the U.S.; many decry the trees’ thirst in water-stressed California, where most global almond production occurs (Gonzales, 2015; Palmer et al., 2024; Pollan, 2007; Reisman, 2019). But this is only part of the story. Emily Reisman examines how different agricultural, political, place, and environmental contexts shape our understanding of what almond trees “need,” comparing intensive almond production in California with Spain’s traditional rainfed systems in her 2025 book, The Almond Paradox: Cracking Open the Politics of What Plants Need.

Dramatic increases in almond production have also led to steady, higher demand for the product, fueled by marketing investments from the grower association. Almonds are no longer a seasonal holiday food and instead are eaten year-round with many uses. These market demands have shaped almonds as a major agricultural crop in California’s Central Valley, creating new challenges for food and environmental systems. . . .