Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

Our Food Future: A regional food circularity case study from Canada

Haley Everitt — 2026-03-27

In response to the socio-economic and environmental limitations of contemporary food systems, a multistakeholder group of community changemakers came together to create Our Food Future, an ambitious effort that aimed to develop a regional circular food system in the Guelph-Wellington region of Ontario, Canada. This study involved interviews with individuals (N = 35) who contributed to the development and/or implementation of Our Food Future’s programming and projects in order to identify lessons learned from this municipally led circular economy initiative. In this article, we argue that the proponents of Our Food Future worked to leverage circular economy and municipal innovation discourses and practices to catalyze a sustainability transformation based in the local food system. Perceived enablers to success include the centrality of relationships and partnerships to the project design, collaborations across traditional city/county divides, the diversity of thought embodied by the workstream model, the focus on food as a locally relevant issue, and the municipal scale of intervention into policy and practice. We also observed that the municipal governance model operationalized in the project was itself an innovation. Our analysis indicates that Our Food Future represented systemic and enabling approaches to sustainability transformations, and that structural transformation will require ongoing efforts to fundamentally change the socio-ecological context of contemporary food systems. This study functions as an early case study of regional food circularity initiatives, with the goal of enabling the project’s lessons to be applied to other locales in Canada and abroad.

Bridging Western and Indigenous epistemologies in an opaque world

Garin Bulger — 2026-03-24

Food security and food sovereignty represent two similar but distinct pathways for community-led climate adaptation. This study examines how two North American organizations—The Kake Tribal Heritage Foundation (Alaska) and La Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica (Puerto Rico)—integrate Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and Western Science (WS) to strengthen food systems against climate-related challenges such as extreme weather, supply chain disruptions, and socio-economic inequities. Kake focuses on food security, while Organización Boricuá focuses on food sovereignty. We explore how these community organizations leverage sustainable practices, culturally rooted knowledge, and community engagement to build resilience by integrating IK and WS through these differing approaches. While both groups integrate IK and WS, tensions persist between IK’s emphasis on relational, long-term stewardship and WS’s empirical, replicable methods. However, these case studies illustrate how food systems initiatives serve as adaptable climate strategies through integrating local and Indigenous knowledge with broader Western scientific environmental frameworks.

Challenges to production agriculture in Pottawatomie County, Kansas, USA

Jacob Miller-Klugesherz — 2026-03-24

Pottawatomie County, Kansas, features Flint Hills prairie, Oregon Trail history, lots of livestock, and commodity crop production. In 2023, it posted the highest population growth rate in Kansas, with high rates of community well-being and exurban and suburban sprawl. For farmers who have depended on maintaining and adding contiguous farmland to their operations, it has become increasingly difficult for them to compete with the prices that residential and business developers offer for farmland. Primary-occupation farmers also feel threatened by concentrated farm sales, redistricting, and an expanded county commission. I used Flora et al.’s (2016) community capital framework to assess rising tensions between and among stakeholders with interests in farming and nonfarm stakeholders with interests in development. Social capital—which includes social trust, networks, and shared values that people can cultivate and use to improve their livelihoods—was especially germane. To better understand the nature of social capital within and between the two stakeholder groups, I integrated the eco-social symbiotic spectrum (ranging from mutualism to competition) to perform a reflexive thematic analysis of 22 semi-structured interviews. Interviewees shared their experiences with, and perceptions of, the changing county dynamics, revealing how different symbiotic relationships influenced social capital accrual. Interviewees’ perceptions largely depended on their occupation. Primary-occupation farmers viewed their relationships with development stakeholders as parasitic, with the latter benefiting from the former, and their relationships with other farmers as competitive, undermining their social capital. Conversely, secondary-occupation farmers and community leaders expressed commensalism and mutualism with their networks. To ease tensions among stakeholder groups, the county and/or certain townships could implement property tax reforms —to reduce the degree to which farmland owners subsidize exurban and suburban expansion—and invest in more locally produced specialty crop infrastructure.

Scaling up urban agriculture in Tempe, Arizona

Esteve Giraud — 2026-03-23

This paper documents an early-stage participatory planning process to scale up urban agriculture in Tempe, Arizona, an arid, land-constrained city that in four contiguous neighborhoods faces high rates of food insecurity and vulnerability. Using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, a transdisciplinary team of researchers, city staff, and community-based organizations collaborated with neighborhood residents to assess the state of urban agriculture, identify local priorities, and co-develop ten policy recommendations. The process included 86 food access surveys, mapping, practitioner interviews in Tempe and with representatives from six other cities, and community workshops. Residents emphasized the need for urban agriculture spaces that support food production, education, workforce development, and community building. Key barriers included limited funding, volunteer instability, and poor communication of existing resources. Despite water scarcity and land pressures, the study highlights how urban agriculture when water-smart and strategically located can serve as resilience infrastructure and address intersecting civic, environmental, and social goals. The case contributes to growing evidence that participatory planning supported by trusted intermediaries can shape agendas before formal food policy structures exist, and foster civic engagement, social connections, and institutional learning essential for food systems transformation. It serves as an example of pro-connection public engagement that addresses the loneliness epidemic, and proposes recommendations for transitioning from fragmented grassroots efforts to a coordinated, equity-centered urban agriculture system in Tempe. The findings offer insights for other cities exploring participatory food planning in the absence of formal food policy structures.

SNAP’s Restaurant Meals Program

Vicky Vong — 2026-03-16

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the largest U.S. nutrition assistance program, provides financial support to Americans with low income to purchase food. However, SNAP benefits cannot be used to purchase prepared foods, including foods at restaurants. The Restaurant Meals Program (RMP), a program under SNAP offices, offers an important opportunity, yet an underutilized strategy, to improve food access and food security for some of the most vulnerable individuals, including older adults, people experiencing homelessness, and those with disabilities, by allowing them to use SNAP benefits to purchase food at participating restaurants. Though introduced as an option for states in 1977, uptake of RMP has been low, with only nine states participating as of 2025. The factors driving or hindering RMP adoption and effective implementation are poorly understood, leaving a critical gap in policy and practice. To fill these knowledge gaps, this study utilized a rapid literature review, followed by key informant interviews with state administrators of RMP and owners of independent restaurants participating in RMP. Key drivers for adoption and implementation of RMP included motivations to champion food access and food security; to connect local restaurants, communities, and cultures; and to stimulate local economies. Conversely, major constraints included onerous administrative processes for both states and restaurants; fast-food chain domination undermining the driver of connecting local restaurants, communities, and cultures; overcoming misconceptions and negative public opinions about the program; and addressing gaps in program evaluation efforts. These findings highlight the multi-level nature of factors, ranging from intrapersonal motivations to broader policy and administrative domains, that require attention for the successful and equitable expansion of RMP, and highlight RMP as an opportunity to promote agency, dignity, and equity in food assistance, particularly for vulnerable groups least able to prepare meals at home. Recommendations include streamlining enrollment, prioritizing independent restaurant participation, improving federal guidance, and investing in program evaluation.

Community strategies for strengthening food autonomy and buen vivir in a Nasa Indigenous Reservation, Colombia

Sara María Cano-Bedoya — 2026-03-11

The growing problem of hunger and food insecurity remains a persistent global challenge. In Colombia, the Department of Huila, an administrative region located in the southwest of the country, exhibits high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition among its Indigenous population, a process linked to land and ancestral traditions that are part of the concept of food autonomy. This study aimed to describe the community strategies co-constructed by the Nasa Páez Indigenous Reservation to strengthen food autonomy and buen vivir (good living) within their territory. Using a qualitative community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, the study was conducted in two phases. The approach to the community phase involved presenting the proposed study during a community assembly, forming a community coalition, and agreeing on methodological aspects. The diagnosis and strategy formulation phase included documentation review, participatory meetings on buen vivir and food memory, Circles of the Word (talking circles), and visits to the tul (traditional household garden). These activities facilitated the co-construction of community-led strategies to strengthen food autonomy. The community coalition established five strategies: the recovery of native seeds, the implementation of demonstration tul, the development of a Nasa cropping calendar, the installation of water filters, and a cross-cutting component focused on ongoing support, awareness-raising, and training. These strategies were grounded in the cosmovision, traditional knowledge, and practices of the Nasa people and took into account the local community’s capacities. Ultimately, these community-led strategies helped lay the foundations for strengthening food autonomy and buen vivir, highlighting the value of the participatory process and the community’s capacity to self-organize around food practices. This study offers valuable insights for strengthening participatory approaches to Indigenous food sovereignty.

Measuring change without seeing the system

Zeynab Jouzi — 2026-03-09

First paragraphs:

In behavioral and applied food system research, intervention studies aimed at improving practices such as healthy eating are often evaluated as if the systems in which they operate are stable and closed. Success is usually measured through specific behavioral outcomes, based on the assumption that observed changes can be attributed primarily to the intervention itself. However, eating behaviors do not occur in isolation. They are shaped by income, housing conditions, time constraints, cultural norms, food environments, and policy contexts that extend far beyond any single program. Intervention design already includes assumptions about how the system works, and evaluation frameworks follow those assumptions. Therefore, what evaluation can observe, measure, and interpret is limited before the evaluation even begins.

This problem resonates with recent discussions in food systems scholarship about how a narrow focus on methodological rigor shapes what can be known in complex systems, including JAFSCD’s winter 2025 introduction to a special section of articles on triple rigor (Budowle & Porter, 2025). The introduction highlights the limits of epistemological rigor alone and argues for making space for uncertainty as a condition for more humble and generative knowledge production in complex food systems. This commentary is informed by engagement with and review of intervention research in food systems, nutrition, and community development settings. . . .

Public health and food systems in emerging economies under corporate influence

Zeynab Jouzi — 2026-03-08

First paragraph:

Noncommunicable diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes have become among the most serious public health challenges of our time, especially in developing countries and emerging economies. Many governments have implemented nutrition education and awareness campaigns, but rates of obesity and diabetes continue to rise. In Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast-Food Industries Are Reshaping Emerging Economies, Eduardo J. Gómez asks a clear and urgent question: why do these diseases increase despite stated government commitments to control them? . . .

From invisibility to accountability: Rethinking Canada’s responsibility toward migrant workers

Jessica Garneau — 2026-03-08

First paragraph:

In Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio offers a deeply researched and powerfully narrated account of the structural vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers in Canada. Through a combination of investigative journalism, historical analysis, and intimate biographical portraits, Di Cintio challenges dominant narratives of Canadian benevolence and exposes the systemic conditions that render thousands of workers “permanently temporary.” At a time when labor shortages and food insecurity dominate public debate, this book provides a timely and necessary examination of the human cost underlying Canada’s economy. . . .

A community supported agriculture produce prescription pilot program in the Northern Black Hills

Gemma Bastian — 2026-03-05

One in eight South Dakota residents face food insecurity, which has been linked to increased prevalence of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Produce prescription (PRx) programs have proliferated to ameliorate food insecurity and prevent chronic disease exacerbation through provision of fresh produce to clinically eligible patients. This study conducted a preliminary process and impact evaluation of Dakota Food Rx, a pilot community-supported agriculture PRx program in the Northern Black Hills of South Dakota. Healthcare providers (Prescribers) referred adults with low income and/or food insecurity and diet-related chronic disease (Patients) to receive weekly produce boxes from a local specialty producer (Growers). Evaluation measures included Patient pre-post surveys and key informant interviews with Prescribers, Growers, and Patients. Thirty Patients participated in the program, picking up 434 produce boxes (mean 14.5 per patient) valued at over US$14,000 from June-November 2024. Ten pre- and eight post-surveys were completed (seven completed pre-only, five completed post-only, and three completed both); nine interviews were conducted. Overall, program satisfaction was high among all participants. Patients responding at post-test had higher food security and sense of community than those at pre-test. Thematic analysis of the key informant interviews indicated that Patients improved their diet, food access, and overall health; moreover, relationships were built between Patients and other Dakota Food Rx actors. Prescribers, Growers, and Patients all reported ways in which they had to adapt to the program, and future considerations included increased communication, improved workflow, and additional resources. The Dakota Food Rx pilot showed promise for improving diet, food security, and sense of community belonging for Patients in rural South Dakota with low income and experiencing or at risk of diet-related chronic disease.