Increasing Community Participation with Self-Organizing Meeting Processes

Involving many people in community-based research provides many benefits, such as more labor power and increased buy-in. Traditional meeting formats, however, are not well suited to attracting broad engagement. One way to address this challenge is to instead employ self-organizing meeting processes, which are designed to invite active participation from attendees, and do not predefine the agenda. This article describes three such processes, 1) Open Space Technology, 2) World Café, and 3) Dynamic Facilitation, followed by my observations on their advantages and disadvantages when employed in community-based research efforts. Their use requires giving up a great amount of control when compared with traditional, topdown meeting approaches, and may result in actions beyond, or even excluding, research. The strong possibility of failing to address organizers’ own short-term goals, however, should be balanced with the higher likelihood of achieving the broader community’s long-term goals

Visualizing Food System Concentration and Consolidation

Visualization of the changing structure of the food system has played an important role in the Missouri School of Agrifood Studies’ research and outreach. The analogies and diagrams Missouri researchers have used to describe concentration and consolidation have aided our understanding of the extent of these phenomena, as well as their social impacts. This article discusses why visualization is effective for analyzing and presenting data. Recent advances in visualizing concentration and consolidation are described—these methods include 1) treemaps, 2) cartographic maps, 3) cluster diagrams, 4) taxonomic tree/timelines, and 5) animations. Examples utilizing data from the North American organic food industry illustrate the potential of visualization to improve analysis of recent structural changes, and to increase public awareness of the unequal distribution of power in the food system

The politics of milk: Examining claims about dairy in China

This report focuses on three key claims driving the huge growth in recent decades in the production and consumption of dairy products in China – a country that historically had low level of interest in these products.These claims are problematic because they "change the subject" and deflect criticism. They steer attention away from the fact that most of the benefits from increased production and consumption of industrialized dairy products in China flow to a tiny minority. They close off encouragements to develop food systems that are more diverse, more regionally self-sufficient, and less highly processed.These claims are made frequently by dairy industry executives, government officials, investors, and even civil society organizations. They are also widely repeated in mainstream and alternative media sources.Claim 1: Dairy is cheap. Implications: Food calories need to be affordable; one should promote calorie-dense foods and reduce their prices. Problem: Hidden costs (government subsidies, negative social and ecological impacts) are left out and not included in retail prices.Claim 2: Dairy is nutritious. Implications: Specific nutrients, particularly protein, are needed for human health and should be promoted. Problem: The claim leaves out negative health impacts of increased consumption of dairy products particularly in ultraprocessed form, and the fact that deficiency of protein is relatively uncommon in China.Claim 3: Rising consumer incomes are increasing demand for dairy. Implications: Domestic production and imports should be increased to meet this demand. Problem: The claim leaves out the substantial role of marketing efforts for shaping and reshaping purchasing behaviors to benefit the largest firms and their investors

Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat?

accumulation capital as power dominant capital foodThis book seeks to illuminate which firms have become the most dominant, and more importantly, how they shape and reshape society in their efforts to increase their control. These dynamics have received insufficient attention from academics and even critics of the current food system. The power of dominant firms extends far beyond narrow economic boundaries, for example, providing them with the ability to damage numerous communities and ecosystems in their pursuit of higher than average profits. The social resistance provoked by these negative consequences is another area that is less visible to the majority of the population. When such resistance is evident at all, it frequently appears insignificant, failing to challenge the direction of current trends. Even very small movements, however, may influence which firms end up winners or losers or close off particular avenues for growth. These accomplishments also suggest potential limits and therefore the possibility that dominant firms may experience much greater threats to their power in the future

Tensions Between Firm Size and Sustainability Goals: Fair Trade Coffee in the United States

Sustainability marketing trends have typically been led by smaller, more mission-driven firms, but are increasingly attracting larger, more profit-driven firms. Studying the strategies of firms that are moving away from these two poles (i.e., mission-driven but larger firms, and profit-driven firms that are more committed to sustainability) may help us to better understand the potential to resolve tensions between firm size and sustainability goals. We used this approach to analyze a case study of the U.S. fair trade coffee industry, employing the methods of data visualization and media content analysis. We identified three firms that account for the highest proportion of U.S. fair trade coffee purchases (Equal Exchange, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Starbucks) and analyzed their strategies, including reactions to recent changes in U.S. fair trade standards. We found an inverse relationship between firm size and demonstrated commitment to sustainability ideals, and the two larger firms were much less likely to acknowledge conflicts between size and sustainability in their public discourse. We conclude that similar efforts to increase sustainability marketing for other products and services should be more skeptical of approaches that rely on primarily on the participation of large, profit-driven firms

Who’s the Fairest of Them All? The Fractured Landscape of U.S. Fair Trade Certification

In recent years, consumers in the United States have been confronted by no fewer than four competing fair-trade labels, each grounded in a separate certification system and widely differing standards. This fracturing is partly a response to the recent split by the U.S. certifier Fair Trade USA from the international fair trade system, but also illustrates longstanding divisions within the fair trade movement. This article explores the dynamics of competition among nonstate standards through content analyses of fair trade standards documents from the four U.S. fair-trade certifications for agrifood products (Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade America, Fair for Life, and the Small Producer Symbol). It analyzes the differences among them, asking what kinds of social and labor relations are facilitated by each, and identifies how closely they correspond with key fair trade principles. We make two primary arguments. First, we contend that the case of fair trade challenges the dominant conceptual model used to analyze competition among multiple private standards in a single arena, in which newer challengers lower the rigor of standards. Second, we argue that the current fractured U.S. certification landscape illuminates divisions among different interest groups over which principles—and which labor and production forms—should be privileged under the banner of fair trade

Agroecology and Food Sovereignty

We propose that agroecology provides a framework for understanding ‘levels’ for the transition to sustainable food systems. If we agree that agroecology includes social and political dimensions of governing territorial food systems, then it must be linked to movements for food sovereignty. However, the concentration of power in food and farming systems locks in industrial logic, posing immense barriers to agroecological and social transition. This creates a tension between efforts at convergence of food system innovations from below, versus co-optation of grass-roots language and practices by private and public actors who are committed not to changing the logic of industrial agriculture, but instead to reducing its harm. We suggest agroecological and food sovereignty movements consciously embrace this tension as a dance of creativity and appropriation. If this dance can be made generative rather than deadly, it can open pathways for transition to new ways of seeing, experiencing, and getting food.International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES Food

Power, Food and Agriculture: Implications for Farmers, Consumers and Communities

agriculture casp farmers food powerOne of the most pressing concerns about the industrialization of agriculture and food is the consolidation and concentration of markets for agricultural inputs, agricultural commodities food processing and groceries. In essence a small minority of actors globally exercise great control over food system decisions. This means that because of increased consolidation of these markets globally – from the United States to China to Brazil, from South Africa to the United Kingdom – the vast majority of farmers, consumers and communities are left out of key decisions about how we farm and what we eat. Transnational agrifood firms are motivated by profits and power in the marketplace, leaving other social, economic and ecological goals behind. This creates an agroecological crisis in the face of climate uncertainty but one that is rooted in social and economic organization. In this chapter we detail the current economic organization of agriculture, and briefly describe its negative impacts on farmers, communities and ecology. We conclude by articulating stories of farmer-led resistance that imagine a new food system

Crime and Psychiatric Disorders Among Youth in the US population: An Analysis of the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement

Objective Current knowledge regarding psychiatric disorders and crime in youth is limited to juvenile justice and community samples. This study examined relationships between psychiatric disorders and self-reported crime involvement in a sample of youth representative of the US population. Method The National Comorbidity Survey–Adolescent Supplement (N = 10,123; ages 13–17 years; 2001–2004) was used to examine the relationship between lifetime DSM-IV–based diagnoses, reported crime (property, violent, other), and arrest history. Logistic regression compared the odds of reported crime involvement with specific psychiatric disorders to those without any diagnoses, and examined the odds of crime by psychiatric comorbidity. Results Prevalence of crime was 18.4%. Youth with lifetime psychiatric disorders, compared to no disorders, had significantly greater odds of crime, including violent crime. For violent crime resulting in arrest, conduct disorder (CD) (odds ratio OR = 57.5; 95% CI = 30.4, 108.8), alcohol use disorders (OR = 19.5; 95% CI = 8.8, 43.2), and drug use disorders (OR = 16.1; 95% CI = 9.3, 27.7) had the greatest odds with similar findings for violent crime with no arrest. Psychiatric comorbidity increased the odds of crime. Youth with 3 or more diagnoses (16.0% of population) accounted for 54.1% of those reporting arrest for violent crime. Youth with at least 1 diagnosis committed 85.8% of crime, which was reduced to 67.9% by removing individuals with CD. Importantly, 88.2% of youth with mental illness reported never having committed any crime. Conclusion Our findings highlight the importance of improving access to mental health services for youthful offenders in community settings, given the substantial associations found between mental illness and crime in this nationally representative epidemiological sample