Findings of the 2019 National Food Hub Survey

This report was nearing completion in March 2020 and therefore does not address the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in detail. Please see the epilogue, on page 44, for the authors' reflections on the role food hubs have played in supporting and enhancing the resiliency of local and regional food systems throughout the pandemic. We encourage readers to consider this context as they read the report, which offers a unique snapshot of pre-COVID food hub operations.

Delivering More Than Food: Understanding and Operationalizing Racial Equity in Food Hubs

This report is a look at a how U.S.-based food hubs understand engagement in racial equity work. The sample of food hubs interviewed for this report are diverse in their structures, leadership, and missions. Through interviews with food hub managers and other roles, we identify common facilitators and inhibitors to food hubs engaging in racial equity work. After presenting the major themes of our findings, we provide an analysis of those findings through multiple frames. We offer takeaways in the form of identifying deeper questions for food hubs, funders, and researchers about how to meaningfully support racial equity within the food system. We also offer specifics of how to operationalize some of our findings by providing a few examples of food hubs/food system organizations that have taken clear action toward achieving racial equity goals.

"Put Your Own Mask on Before Helping Someone Else": The Capacity of Food Hubs to Build Equitable Food Access

In a bifurcated U.S. food market, where one market is largely controlled by national brands and global corporations alongside an expanding alter­nate market of hyper-local direct sales, midscale producers and processors are struggling to persist. One emerging strategy for rebuilding this middle of the food system—food hubs—has gained attention as a model that could rebuild local food economies and equitable food access. Through an examination of Michigan food hubs, we ask about the extent to which and under what conditions food hubs can operationalize dual economic and social goals. We found many innovations and efforts to address food access in low-income communities—espe­cially among food hubs that were nonprofits, had been operating for less time, and were more dependent on external revenue—but their impact tended to be small-scale and uncertain. Most food hubs want to do more, but our study suggests they may not be able to until they can figuratively “put on their own mask before helping others.” That is, food hubs may be one means of increasing afford­able, healthy food access in certain scenarios, but equitable food access may be an unrealistic and unsustainable goal unless they can ensure their own financial stability. Among other options for satis­fying the requirements for equitable food access, financial survival, and returns to the farm gate, our findings suggest that food hubs attempting to reduce food access inequities may need to be subsidized as a public good, unless and until the public sector commits to a more comprehensive strategy to address food system failures

Floristic quality and site assessment of Inverness Mud Lake Bog in Cheboygan County, Michigan

Nature conservancy organizations need a standard by which to compare sites in order to protect those with more significance. Mud Lake Bog in Cheboygan County, Michigan is a protected natural reserve. Mud Lake Bog hosts a wide variety of naturally-occurring floral zones that delineate the sequence of wetland regions surrounding the central lake. We divided Mud Lake Bog into three regions: Cedar Swamp, Spruce Muskeg, and Sphagnum mat. In each of these areas we inventoried all the flora species we found. This inventory was collected along a transect extending through all three areas and then in the area surrounding the transect. We then performed a floristic quality assessment on the inventory to assess plant diversity and floristic condition of the entire studied site. We found that Mud Lake Bog has high floristic quality index rating inferring a status very similar to pre-European settlement.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55001/1/3442.pdfDescription of 3442.pdf : Access restricted to on-site users at the U-M Biological Station