Progress 03/01/11 to 02/28/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Multiple target audiences were reached during this reporting period through various outputs. The manuscripts that were published are targeted to extension educators, academic researchers, students, USDA staff, state and federal level government workers, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region, and what we have learned from participating in this interdisciplinary, complex food systems research project. Further, our translations of these manuscripts into non-technical research briefs provide an accessible summary of project findings for general audiences. The manuscripts and briefs will be shared, among other places, in the project newsletter which has 400 subscribers who identify as consumers, producers, food-related business owners, other research and extension staff, non-profit staff, students, communicators, agricultural educators, and members of other AFRI projects. The research briefs also will be shared through the eXtension platform to reach a wide audience of eXtension educators and stakeholders. Our community events engaged community members in the low-income locations we studied, including people belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups and from socially, economically, and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. Some community events were staged around project findings, in which team members shared results that were of particular relevance to the community. The supply chain case studies were shared with storeowners and were presented at a Cornell in-service training for Extension Educators. Changes/Problems:Over seven years changes, challenges and adaptations in this large and complex project were inevitable. A number of personnel changes occurred among researchers (one took an unrelated job, and one retired); several location leaders left and were replaced; and postdocs, graduate students, and project assistants completed their dissertations/projects. Adaptations occurred due to time and resource constraints on the teams, and to maintain greater focus. For example we only studied retail stores in order to keep the focus on retail and not direct markets - we did not include institutions for the same reason; CONS did not have the capacity or resources to intervene to increase consumer demands for certain foods; and the PROD researchers working on aggregation and distribution models chose to only study fresh fruits and vegetables. Other PROD researchers working to estimate potential capacity to produce the Market Basket items completed work on two of them: potatoes and wheat. The OUTR team was able to develop one topical learning community (on Local and Regional Food Systems Modeling). It was not feasible to develop site-based learning communities as the project proceeded. However, there were events in each community that brought together community members and others to discuss many different elements of food security. Some changes occurred due to data constraints. For example several stores went out of business over the course of the project, and we were able to only replace some of them. DIST was not able to study the bread supply chain because it was not possible to obtain information from several supply chain sectors. The development of a database to estimate potential production capacity for the NE at the county level was not feasible because of the lack of data at that level. County-level data were used to determine yields for a few crops. We also added components as the project proceeded. One was the community readiness assessment which enhanced the ability of community leaders to move forward on work on food access at the local level. Another was our review and summary of national and regional data regarding the production of all the Market Basket items which appear in the Market Basket article (JAFSCD 2017). A third was more formal attention paid to the large number of graduate students participating in the project and how they were learning and interacting. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Across the entire project team, creation of a challenging yet flexible co-learning environment was a high priority, resulting in an outstanding context for training students and early stage researchers in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research practice. Graduate students participated in all of our in-person, all-team meetings. Welcomed into the group as peers, they played active roles and initiated several valuable project activities. Research and other collaborations developed between graduate students and faculty from different institutions. Although this emerged organically in EFSNE, we suspect this is a replicable outcome that future projects could include with deliberate planning from the proposal stage forward. The project engaged at least 45 students over its seven-year run. Nine students earned their doctoral degrees during this period, and a number of students earned masters degrees. One used the project as the basis of his doctoral dissertation, while several directly incorporated food systems questions into their research. In addition to food-systems materials that EFSNE team members incorporated into several new and existing courses, the EDUC team worked on revising procedures and practices for community-based experiential internships related to food systems. These new internship models have influenced general approaches to internships in the College of AgSci at Penn State. EFSNE hosted five undergraduate community-based interns who helped with data collection, analysis, and project outreach. Building from their internship experience, two of these students launched a "Collaborative Cooking" enterprise, involving food system and culinary learning for those with minimal cooking skills and having more than 85 participants to date. Twenty-two of the more than 40 students who engaged with the project responded to an internal survey aimed at understanding what they gained from their participation. The majority indicated that they developed at least one new food systems competency or skill, including a greater appreciation of the complexity of food systems (91 percent); collaborating with people across disciplines or specializations (77 percent); and, learning to work collaboratively with people who occupy different levels in the academic system (77 percent). Survey results are being written up for publication. Managed by an interested graduate-student member of the Production Team in conjunction with project faculty, the survey effort itself modeled learning-by-doing and fostered critical reflection about educational experiences across the project. Several community leaders were trained in human subjects research at several universities, allowing them to contribute to our data collection and allowing them to participate in other research efforts in the future. Chris Peters and Kate Clancy presented a workshop at a symposium for the Teaching about Food Systems Community of Practice held at Columbia University in June 2017. They shared information with the attendees about the multiple roles students played in the project and the results of the survey that was done to capture what students have learned through their engagement with EFSNE. Finally, the project also functioned as a new learning environment for team members. Some of the 22 senior researchers had worked together before, but many had not. All learned a great deal about each other's disciplines and about research in multiple areas with which they previously had not been engaged. In the external evaluation of the project individuals reported that EFSNE was one in which the team "enters into really important conversations"; in which "we learn so much from each other"; in which people now "understood other disciplines better", and "understood the whole food systems better"; and in which "we were able to create a common language." Preparation of the cross-project manuscripts in the last two years of the project provided a forum where some of the research integration and learning was most intense. Also, everyone experienced an interdisciplinary project as a "true collaboration" at great depth over seven years, and took away knowledge and experience for future research and teaching. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In conducting outreach (extension) we used several methods to disseminate findings and to engage the project communities and fellow researchers across the country. We developed a strategic plan in which we identified eight stakeholder audiences along with activities to reach them, desired behaviors, and ways by which this might be accomplished in the nine project locations. EFSNE's inter-related compilation of outreach tactics can serve as an example for other complex and transdisciplinary projects. A major dissemination tactic was to publish project findings. EFSNE team members have published articles in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Food Policy, International Journal of Production Economics, Agricultural Economics, Environmental Science and Technology, European Journal of Operational Research, American Journal of Potato Research, and more. These venues demonstrate the breadth of the project's disciplinary reach. In addition, the project coordinated the publication of 10 cross-project manuscripts for a special-topic issue in two separate journals: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development < https://goo.gl/DhFxy6> and Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Outreach team members translated several project-related manuscripts into formats for multiple audiences, including policy makers, food system practitioners, consumers, and researchers from other disciplines. Through our research brief series, we will have "repurposed" 10-12 manuscripts into 2-4 page briefs for general audiences. Each brief explains the issue and the research addressed, and walks the reader through the research methods. The briefs enable readers to digest the findings and understand the implications of the work. We have shared the briefs widely, including at annual conferences of the Food Distribution Research Society and the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, as well as on the NESAWG, EFSNE, and NERCRD websites. The project website, newsletters and workshops enabled all stakeholders to learn about the project--from an accessible explanation of the project structure, objectives, and research activities, to information on locations and study sites, to explanatory non-scientific storytelling. We issued nine newsletters containing a total of 61 stories, reaching nearly 400 subscribers. EFSNE reached multi-stakeholder audiences by holding a workshop about the project each year at NESAWG's annual "It Takes a Region" conference. Over the course of the project, team members from across EFSNE gave nearly 100 presentations on various aspects of the project to a diverse array of audiences. These included the Northeast Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, American Agricultural Economics Association, National Association of Counties, Agriculture Food and Human Values Society, Rural Sociological Society, Oregon Food Systems Network Convening, SUNY New Paltz Food Lecture Series, and many more. The learning community concept was core to EFSNE's commitment to developing multiple ways to inform, teach, learn and network. One delivery vehicle was through Extension's online learning community platform <http://articles.extension.org/community_and_regional_food_systems>. The EFSNE project was instrumental in securing additional funding to launch the Community, Regional, and Local Foods eXtension Community of Practice (CoP), a key resource for more than 450 food system researchers and practitioners nationwide, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin/Madison and Ohio State University. At one point this was the fastest-growing CoP in all of eXtension and attracted more members than any other community, underscoring the strong need for this service. It provides a forum for individuals to engage and share information with one another around various topics. Approximately 365 stakeholders attended the CoP's most recent webinar, which provided resources for research and outreach on structural racism in the U.S. food system. A national Leadership Team continues to provide overall direction and oversee its administration. Another method deployed was to gather professionals around a specific topic. A Food Systems Modeling Learning Community emerged to fill an identified need expressed by modelers from various disciplines. This community of 15 researchers from across the country hosted phone meetings and several webinars that increased their familiarity with food system modeling methods and their capacity to continue their research. Their presentations and learning resources will remain available on the project website, potentially allowing other food system modelers and practitioners to expand their knowledge, and the group has plans to continue occasional co-learning events in the future. We adapted the learning community concept to our project communities. At six of the project's locations, location leaders worked with project partners to host community-based events and workshops to enhance understanding of local and regional food system issues and encouraged communities to use the findings in their work. Each location took a different approach, and executed engaging, interactive and place-based initiatives using project results and local resources to animate the findings. For example, a Pittsburg neighborhood collected oral histories on food for a local celebration. Syracuse organized a two-day Food Justice Forum for 240 community and industry participants. Community leaders in the Baltimore location organized an event called "Think Regional, Act Local: A Workshop Exploring Our Regional Food System." Some community events--such as those in Syracuse and Vermont--sparked new or recurring collaborations. Our community readiness assessments enhanced communities' understanding of potential strategies for moving forward on food access from where they are presently toward what they want to achieve. The Community Readiness Model (CRM) is used to assess how ready a community is to address a social issue. We adapted it for food access and applied it to six of our project communities. Project researchers interviewed key stakeholders and analyzed the results according to CRM dimensions. The results were shared with the communities. Several interviewees said they would like to use the information to "close the gaps between program goals ... and practices in the field." In 2013, with a separate NIFA conference grant, the project brought community leaders, supermarket owners and project researchers together for a two-day meeting that enhanced community leaders' understanding of the research and encouraged communities' involvement with the project's investigations and their own food system activities. In 2015, the Outreach Team organized a national conference to share information about the project. Over 125 academics, policymakers, government staff, students and community leaders, including five AFRI projects in the same cohort, learned of our work and offered feedback to inform the project's concluding phase. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
A hallmark of this project has been the systems-oriented focus on integrated Production, Distribution and Consumption (PROD, DIST, and CONS) objectives, coupled with Outreach and Education goals (OUTR and EDUC). We provided in-depth analyses, evidence, and knowledge of the present system and recommendations on desirable changes going forward. These include, for example, policy changes that would result in more attention to small supermarkets and the need for and merits of regional research. We studied consumer shopping patterns and purchases, executed extensive economic, land use, and geospatial crop modeling, and examined actual supply chains in nine locations around the Northeast US. Through these efforts and many others we now better understand the extent to which the region can increase production of certain foods and potentially better meet the needs of low-income populations in the locations. We also have modeled and presented the processes, outputs, and outcomes of a large interdisciplinary project to other current and future scientists and practitioners working in the food security arena. The project has created new knowledge about the capacity of local and regional food systems to supply local, regional, and in some cases national food demands. New actions include collaborations, learning communities, and research and outreach protocols. The project also has changed conditions--nationally by growing the capacity for interdisciplinary food systems research, and at the community level by enhancing cooperation among communities and food stores in our sites. Several specific findings and outcomes, listed below, support cautious optimism with regard to the potential for regional food systems to increase food security for the region and improve community food security in low-income areas. Future outcomes will occur in the form of institutional and behavioral change as these and other findings percolate through the region and the utility and importance of regional-level thinking around food security increases. The research teams used a market basket of eight foods to build a rich picture of each food. Results from the CONS analyses help us to understand how people in lower income communities shop for food, where they shop, and what market basket items they purchase across the Northeast locations. Using secondary data and interviews with study store owners, we compared our stores with the overall retail marketplace. Most of our stores are independent supermarkets that can cater to customers in a way that many national chain stores cannot. Most are losing market share to niche chain stores, dollar stores and superstores, and several closed during the life of the project. Like most US shoppers, customers shop both at the study stores and also at multiple other venues. Intercept respondents who participated in a federal nutrition program were more likely to have purchased the MB items. While most respondents (over 53%) listed no barriers to purchasing healthier foods, 46% of program participants stated price was a barrier (compared to 39% of non-program participants). In focus groups and in the intercept surveys, customers talked about not being able to find specific foods, including some healthy foods, at the study stores. However, most respondents also indicated satisfaction with the food sold in their neighborhood: 95% with the quality, 93% with the variety, and 83% with prices charged. DIST team members utilized a variety of models to simulate the effects of reducing CO2 emissions in apple supply chains, increasing demand for cabbage, localizing fluid milk supply chains from the strong regional model that exists now, and increasing the production of fresh broccoli in the Northeast. The findings will be useful to supply chain actors, policymakers, and other stakeholders in identifying further research and understanding how system shocks can affect supply chains for market basket foods. The models will also provide guidance on how to evaluate variables such as seasons and locations in order to anticipate policy impacts. The DIST team also investigated the optimal location of food hubs for fresh fruit and vegetables. Several experimental models were developed to examine optimal locations for fresh produce aggregation facilities nationally and in the Northeast. The results indicate the importance of economies of scale and product seasonality for the planning of distribution networks. These findings are valuable to policymakers as state and federal government agencies design programs to support aggregation of regional produce. Year 7 marked the completion of the supply-chain case studies carried out by DIST, which are accessible on the project website <https://goo.gl/Iir1FZ>. We shared the case study protocol with other groups working on characterization of supply chains nationally. As part of this protocol, we measured the value-added economic activity in the supply chains, the transportation efficiency of non-regional versus regional supply chains, and the percentage of each item that stores source regionally. Among the findings is that there is a significant contribution to the economic value added through the supply chain even if the food is not produced in the Northeast. The PROD team carried out rigorous assessments to provide a frame for comparing the food needs of the region's consumers with the productive capacity of its farms. Using more than 15 USDA datasets, they analyzed production and consumption, land requirements, and population food needs, resulting in measures of Regional Self Reliance for 89 foods. PROD also calculated the foodprint (the area of cropland required to produce a food item based on US per capita consumption of that food and on the crop and livestock productivity per acre in the Northeast region) of six of the foods in the project's market basket; developed a productivity index that will help to quantify the productive capacity of land not currently being used as farmland; and used multiple data sets to identify peri-urban areas of six of our locations through a mapping exercise which showed that large shares of supply chain activities occur in the urban and peri-urban zones. This information will be very useful to those attempting to redevelop local and regional food supplies. PROD members used geospatial crop-modeling to compare current production with potential production of potatoes and of winter wheat in the Northeast under different land use and climate scenarios. These analyses provide a framework to further assess impacts of projected climate change on crop yields. They also can be used by policy makers to inform land use planning, and by producers to inform potential adaptation approaches. Through these various analyses, we confirmed that the Northeast region is currently a net-importer of food overall, although it produces some foods in excess of regional consumption (e.g., milk), and is an important supplier of some foods during certain times of the year (e.g., cabbage). The protocols we developed to perform these analyses have been shared widely, and enhance the knowledge-base of how food production capacity can be modeled. Our baseline assessments also will show how land use changes for food production occur over time. An essential addition to our management plan was forming the "Scenarios and Modeling Team" to collectively create scenarios to be explored through modeling, and to increase group members' understanding of each other's work. The team also facilitated the decision to compile the project's cross-disciplinary learnings in two sets of papers in special sections of JAFSCD and RAFS. Knowledge gained by EFSNE team members has also made its way into several non-EFSNE efforts, including the development of the Baltimore City's Food System Resilience Report, the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council, the PA Model Urban Ag Ordinance, and several land-use presentations.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
C. J. Peters, K. Clancy, C. Clare Hinrichs, S. Goetz. Introduction to the EFSNE Project Collection of Papers. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Published online December 21, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Clancy, K. The Systems and Inter/Transdisciplinary Components of the EFSNE Project. Presented at the Teaching about Food SystemsTransforming Thought Into Action symposium, Columbia University, June 8, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Cleary, R., S.J. Goetz, D. Thilmany McFadden, and H. Ge. Location and Profit Drivers of Local Food Hubs. Selected Paper Session, American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, August 1, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Clancy, K. Building successful interdisciplinary systems projects. Presented at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, January 31, 2018.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Bonanno, A., R. Cleary, and C. Cho. Demographics, Shopping Patterns, and Healthy Food Choices by Income Status. Lightning Session, American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, July 31, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Clancy, K. An Overview of the EFSNE Project. Presented at the Oregon Community Food Systems Convening, April 19, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Clancy, K. A Systems Exploration of Food Security in the Northeast. Presented at the State University of New YorkNew Paltz, April 27, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Clancy, K. Presentation at the Local Food Impacts conference, George Washington University, Washington, DC, April 4, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Cleary, R., S.J. Goetz, and H. Ge. Local Food Hubs: Social Responsibility and Profit Viability. Local Food Systems Session, Western Regional Science Association Annual Meeting, Santa Fe, NM, February 15, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Devlin, K., K. Ruhf, and K. Clancy. Translating complex dairy supply-chain modeling research for policymakers, consumers, and other non-scientists. Presented at the Food Distribution Research Society 2017 Conference. Honolulu, HI, October 23, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ge, H. Optimal Locations of Fresh Produce Aggregation Facilities in the United States with Scale Economies. Presented at University of Lethbridge, Canada, March 27, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ge, H., P. Canning, and S.J. Goetz. Optimal Fresh Produce Hub Locations and Sizes in the United States: A Comparison of Simulation with Actual Results. Poster presented at the American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, August 1, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Park, K. S., M. G�mez, and K. Clancy. The Role of Regional Supply Chains in Independent Supermarkets: Case Study Findings. Presented at the Agriculture, Food and Environmental Systems In-service, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Ithaca, NY, November 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Peters, C. and K. Clancy. Pedagogical aspects of the EFSNE project. Workshop at Teaching about Food Systems Symposium. Columbia University June, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ruhf, K., C. Hinrichs, L. Berlin, and K. Clancy. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast: Many New Findings. Presented at the 2017 Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference, Baltimore, MD, November 11, 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Public Perceptions of Regional Food Systems, presented by A. Palmer, L. Berlin, K. Clancy, C. Giesecke, C. Hinrichs, R. Lee, P. Mcnab, S. Rocker, and R. Santo; The Role of Regional Supply Chains in Independent Supermarkets: Case Study Findings, by K. Park; Describing Households Food Purchasing Patterns across Poverty and Urban Status, by R. Cleary, A. Bonanno, C. Cho; and Food Systems Education in a Large Interdisciplinary Project: Intentions, Adjustments and Evolving Insights, by C. Hinrichs, E. Piltch, C. Peters, T. Griffin, A. Bonanno, C. Giesecke, and S. Rocker. Presented at the Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast through Regional Food Systems Session, Agricultural, Food and Human Values Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, June 2017.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Cleary, R., A. Bonanno, L. Chenarides, S.J. Goetz. Store profitability and public policies to improve food access in non-metro U.S. counties. Food Policy, Volume 75, February 2018, Pages 158170.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Ge, H., S.J. Goetz, P. Canning, A. Perez. Optimal locations of fresh produce aggregation facilities in the United States with scale economies. International Journal of Production Economics, Volume 197, March 2018, Pages 143-157.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Clancy, K., A. Bonanno, P. Canning, R. Cleary, Z. Conrad, D. Fleisher, M. G�mez, T. Griffin, R. Lee, D. Kane, A. Palmer, K. Park, C. Peters, and N. Tichenor. Using a Market Basket to Explore Regional Food Systems. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Published online December 21, 2017.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ge, H., P. Canning, S. Goetz, and A. Perez. Effects of scale economies and production seasonality on optimal hub locations: the case of regional fresh produce aggregation. Agricultural Economics. Published online December 19, 2017.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Palmer, A., R. Santo, L. Berlin, A. Bonanno, K. Clancy, C. Giesecke, C. Clare Hinrichs, R. Lee, P. McNab, S. Rocker. Between Global and Local: Exploring Regional Food Systems from the Perspectives of Four Communities in the U.S. Northeast. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Published online December 21, 2017.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ruhf, K.Z., K. Devlin, K. Clancy, L. Berlin, and A. Palmer. Engaging Multiple Audiences: Challenges and Strategies in Complex Food Systems Projects. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Published online December 21, 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Devlin, K., K. Ruhf, K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 1: How self-reliant is the Northeast food system? Published on the EFSNE website February 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Devlin, K., K. Ruhf, K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 2: Localizing the Northeast dairy supply chain may not offer many benefits. Published on the EFSNE website February 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ruhf, K., K. Devlin, K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 3: Potential production capacity in the Eastern Seaboard Region: Findings from a study of potatoes. Published on the EFSNE website September 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Ruhf, K., K. Devlin, L. Berlin, K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 4: Using the Community Readiness Model to understand food access. Published on the EFSNE website September 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Devlin, K., K. Ruhf, K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 5: Feeding food-producing animals: How self-reliant is the Northeast? Published on the EFSNE website November 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Devlin, K., K. Ruhf, K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 6: Optimizing the locations of food-distribution businesses. Published on the EFSNE website November 2017.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Ruhf, K., K. Devlin, K. Clancy, L. Berlin, A. Palmer. EFSNE Research Brief 7: EFSNE Outreach: Innovative methods to engage multiple audiences in a complex food system project. Published on the EFSNE website February 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Ruhf, K. and K. Clancy. EFSNE Research Brief 8: Using a market basket to explore regional food systems. Published on the EFSNE website March 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Ruhf, K. Clancy, K. Devlin. EFSNE Research Brief 9: Comparison of Case Studies of Supermarkets and Food Supply Chains in Low-income Areas of the Northeast. Published on the EFSNE website April 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Ruhf, K., A. Palmer, K. Clancy, and K. Devlin. EFSNE Research Brief 10: Exploring Regional Food Systems in the Northeast. Published on the EFSNE website May 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Cross-Case Comparison of 11 Case Studies. Published jointly by Cornell University and Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD), January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Kent County, Delaware, store 1. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Baltimore, MD, store 1. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Baltimore, MD, store 2. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Madison County, NY store. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: New York City store. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Kent County, Delaware, store 2. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Onondaga, NY store. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Syracuse, NY, store 1. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Syracuse, NY, store 2. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Pittsburgh, PA store. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Park, K., M. G�mez, K. Clancy. Supply chain case study: Charleston, WV store. Published jointly by Cornell University and NERCRD, January 2018.
|
Progress 03/01/16 to 02/28/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary target audience includes extension educators, academic researchers, students in classrooms, USDA staff, state and federal level government workers, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region. These include the members of the NIFA GFS projects around the country. As our research results are peer-reviewed, our target audience is expanding to consist of the supply chain members we have surveyed (especially the store owners), the surrounding community, non-profits and community groups working on food issues, and local, regional and federal policymakers where appropriate. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Food Systems Modeling Learning Community that was launched in 2014 has continued to provide 15 economists and biophysical scientists opportunities to learn from each other's work, and has taken steps to broaden their scope to include practitioners. In addition to making many presentations at various conferences and meetings, project team members are engaging with a significant number of students, who are being trained via classroom instruction, applied research experiences, and internships. Furthermore, team members--including students--have the opportunity to learn from colleagues who have different disciplinary backgrounds. Two graduate students who had been training with the project received doctoral degrees during Year Six; in addition, one masters student, five PhD students and two postdoctoral scholars were trained under the project, representing Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Penn State and Tufts Universities and the USDA. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Team members have delivered presentations and disseminated information about the project to our primary target audiences through a number of venues, including an international conference (China), webinars, meetings of professional organizations, peer-reviewed journals, our project e-newsletter, and the project website. Finally, salient findings from the research have been distributed to key stakeholders. For example, the Distribution Team has shared findings from their store case studies with store owners. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Consumption Team members will continue distilling findings into several manuscripts. In addition to the market basket paper, topics of planned manuscripts include public perceptions of regional food systems; dimensions and dynamics of food security in low-income areas of the Northeast US; the status of the independent grocery retail sector in low-income areas in the Northeast US; an analysis of food store locations; and, an analysis of our focus group data. Distribution Team members have released two case studies to store owners for confirmation and validation of information in the cases. Four additional cases are ready to send to store owners. Five cases are being completed. Supply chain case studies will be reviewed by internal and external reviewers, and then published, most likely as a jointly branded effort between EFSNE and Cornell. Team members will continue to write manuscripts distilling their findings (one based on the dairy model, and a second based on the beef model), including a cross-project paper on using a systems approach to characterize food supply chains that will be published after peer review in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Team members will continue building on hub location models to allow for produce product differentiation for assembly and distributing. Production Team members are developing two manuscripts for publication after peer review: Agricultural Production in the Northeast U.S. (to be published in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development), and Roles of Regional Production in a Global Food System (to be published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems). The Outreach Team will continue to work on translating research manuscripts resulting from the project into general-audience research briefs. We will disseminate these briefs broadly, including through the Community, Local, and Regional Food Systems eCoP. We will distill what we have learned about conducting outreach effectively for this complex project into a manuscript to be published after peer review in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development. The website will be updated as manuscripts, research briefs, and other project outputs are completed, to serve as a key repository for the project's products. A summary of the EFSNE survey of students and postdoctoral trainees is being included in a manuscript on the Education component of the EFSNE project. This paper will be submitted as part of a special-issue in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Preparation of the manuscript is underway, and the paper will be submitted in spring 2017. Preparing this manuscript for peer review is the last remaining activity for the Education Team.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Consumption Team members completed the analysis of several years of customer intercept survey data, as well as the analysis for the secondary datasets, which include structural determinants of store locations and purchase data. Team members also have completed analysis of several years of store inventory surveys, and these results are being used in a manuscript currently in progress about the project's market basket. Several other manuscripts are also underway. Location leaders worked with project partners to share and increase awareness of project learnings through specific activities custom-designed to address needs, capacities and interests of the broader communities in two locations. (This was a continuation of community-level activities that launched in Year 5 with funding from a separate NIFA conference grant.) In Dover, DE, 22 producers, Extension staff, and government officials convened to learn about project findings related to production and consumption and what these findings mean to Delaware's producers. They also exchanged information about food-innovation strategies and farm-to-school efforts across the state. In Charleston, WV, 25 residents gathered for a town hall-style meeting to discuss the recent closing of a grocery store that had served the community for more than 50 years and how this affected them, including where they shop now, how they get there, and whether the change has affected their monthly food spending. The event attracted media attention from several news organizations. Distribution Team members continued to implement their supply chain case study protocol, completing detailed supply chain analyses of two market basket foods in project stores. They continued work on the eight remaining case studies, and established a protocol for reviewing them internally and externally before publishing them. In Year 6, a paper describing findings from the apple optimization model was written and presented at the annual meeting of Systems Engineering. This paper is being prepared for submission to Nature Climate Change. The team built on their earlier hub location model by introducing economies of scale and disaggregating annual production statistics into seasonal marketing segments to more accurately account for highly variable geographic disposition of annual fresh produce production. After calibrating and validating these models, team members summarized the collective findings about the hub network structure under different assumptions of operational conditions, and submitted three manuscripts for publication. They also presented their results at the Southern Regional Science Association Annual Meeting, at the Fifth International Workshop on Regional, Urban, and Spatial Economics, and at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting. Finally, team members wrote up their findings from the cabbage model, in which they analyzed the effects that increased demand would have on product flows, prices, and the structure of the cabbage supply chain in the Northeast. That paper has been submitted for publication to Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. Production Team members completed crop simulations evaluating the influence of mid-century climate change on winter wheat production. Unlike results for corn and potato, climate responses were positive, with grain yield increases as large as 50% observed over current climate conditions. These increases were largely due to warmer winter temperatures resulting in a longer growth duration for the crop. A manuscript on these results was submitted and is in the review process. Other than responding to paper reviews as needed, no further work is planned in this area. In year 6, the Production team additionally completed the analysis of the urban and peri-urban production capacity under different market basket items for various key landuse types and supply chain business location patterns in the six project cities and for the twelve state region. A manuscript has been prepared for this work and discussions are currently underway with an academic publisher for a book on the subject of the periurban zone. Outreach and other EFSNE team members presented on the EFSNE project at the November 2016 NESAWG annual conference. We also developed and updated outreach materials to inform stakeholders about the project, including one e-newsletter and several general-audience research briefs for a number of manuscripts produced by the research teams. We continued to support the now-thriving Community, Local and Regional Food Systems eXtension Community of Practice, which has grown to become one of the largest CoPs in the Extension network. We convened two meetings of the national Food Systems Modeling Learning Community, in which food system modelers from various disciplines share their modeling methods via webinars and phone calls. In Year 6, this community identified and analyzed existing food systems modeling training and tools in order to inform their next steps of extending their outreach efforts to other researchers and practitioners. Their goal is to build diverse practitioners' familiarity with food system modeling and to increase their capacity to be informed food system modeling consumers and partners. This group of 15 researchers also has made plans for maintaining their learning community beyond the life of the project. Results from student survey administered by the Education Team in Year 5 have been analyzed, and team members have submitted a presentation proposal about their findings along with three other presentations from the EFSNE project for the 2017 Ag and Human Values conference. Team members at Delaware State University developed a team-taught, experimental course that bridges nutrition and natural resources, titled "Fundamentals of the U.S. Food System and Food Security," which was offered in Spring 2016. The Scenarios and Modeling Team has led a team-wide planning process that began in Year 6 for writing papers that synthesize research findings across the three food system domains (consumption, distribution, and consumption). Their efforts have resulted in plans for two sets of papers to be published after peer review in a special-topic issue of two separate journals: the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development and Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Goetz, S. Applications of Network Science in Food Systems Research. Presented at the Spring 2016 Applied Economics Seminar at Ohio State University, April 22, 2016.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Conrad, Z., N. Tichenor, C. Peters, T. Griffin (2016). Regional self-reliance for livestock feed, meat, dairy, and eggs in the Northeast US. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Published online April 4, 2016.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Goetz, S.J. (2016). The Roles of Agricultural Economists in Food Systems Research. Review of Agricultural and Environmental Economics. Published online May 30, 2016.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Clancy, K., T. Griffin, L. Berlin, A. Palmer. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast: Six Years of Academic-Community Collaborative Research. Presented at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group "It Takes a Region" conference, November 12, 2016.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Clancy, K. Looking at Food Security in the Northeast Region through Different Lenses. Presented at Falk College, Syracuse University, September 22, 2016.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Bonanno, A., R. Cleary, L. Chenarides-Hall, and S.J. Goetz. Store Profits and Public Policies to Improve Food Access. Food and Agricultural Policy Marketing Track Session: Assessing Retail Food Price Dynamics, American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, July 2016.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Clancy, K., L. Berlin, T. Griffin and A. Palmer. Overview of Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast through Regional Food Systems. Presented at the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society Meeting University of Toronto, Scarborough, June 24, 2016.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Clancy, K. A Brief Overview of the EFSNE Project. Presented at Colorado State University, May 16, 2016.
|
Progress 03/01/15 to 02/29/16
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary target audience includes extension educators, academic researchers, students in classrooms, USDA staff, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region. These include the members of the NIFA GFS projects around the country. As our research results are peer-reviewed, our target audience is expanding to consist of the supply chain members we have surveyed (especially the store owners), the surrounding community, non-profits and community groups working on food issues, and local, regional and federal policymakers where appropriate. Changes/Problems:Karen Banks replaced Raychel Santo as the senior program officer at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Rebecca Cleary, Penn State, joined the project as a postdoctoral scholar. Penn State Graduate Student John Eshleman left the project to join one of the other AFRI projects as a research associate. Dan Kane has taken John's place as an administrative and management assistant. Zach Conrad left the project after receiving his PhD, and has stayed at Tufts in a postdoctoral scholar position. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A national conference held in December 2015 provided 110 stakeholders the opportunity to engage around themes that have emerged from EFSNE findings, including public policy implications, transdisciplinary learning, and the future of food systems research. The Food Systems Modeling Learning Community that was launched in 2014 has continued to provide 15 economists and biophysical scientists opportunities to learn from each other's work, and planning is underway for broadening the scope to include practitioners. In addition to making many presentations at various conferences and meetings, project team members are engaging with a significant number of students, who are being trained via classroom instruction, applied research experiences, and internships. Furthermore, team members--including students--have the opportunity to learn from colleagues who have different disciplinary backgrounds. Six graduate students who had been training with the project received degrees, including five masters degrees and one doctoral degree, during Year 5; in addition, ten PhD students, five undergraduate students, and two postdoctoral scholars were trained under the project, representing Columbia, Cornell, Delaware State, Johns Hopkins, Penn State and Tufts Universities, the University of Vermont, and the USDA Agricultural Research Service. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Team members have delivered presentations and disseminated information about the project to our primary target audiences through a number of venues, including our 2015 national conference and other conferences, webinars, meetings of professional organizations, peer-reviewed journals, a quarterly e-newsletter, and the project website. Finally, salient findings from the research have been distributed to key stakeholders. For example, the Distribution Team has shared findings from the fluid milk model with members of the branding program of the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During Year 6, the Consumption Team will continue to analyze the data collected over the life of the project, emphasizing both specific within-site results and cross-site patterns. Since primary data collection is completed, we will spend the bulk of our time working on manuscripts for publication and on reports and research briefs to reach lay audiences with our results. We plan to write a report that summarizes the analysis of customer intercept surveys over three years and select results from the focus groups. At least two manuscripts will be produced using the focus group discussions: "Expectations and Experiences Finding 'Good' Food in Lower-Income Communities in the Northeast U.S.," and "Food Shopping as Social Practice: Navigating Practice in Lower Income Communities." We have conducted end-of-project interviews with most of the storeowners to further understand demand for local and regional sourcing, and because of our increased interest in the role these stores play in the sites and their vulnerability in a shifting retail marketplace. These results will be used in conjunction with previous storeowner interviews and will clarify what we have learned about the stores' viability, sourcing, and opportunities for additional regional sourcing. Using secondary data and storeowner interviews, we will examine how developments at our study stores compare to the changes in the overall retail marketplace, which has become more competitive in the last decade. Using secondary/county level data for the US and the NE, we will analyze the role of food store location. We will also continue to analyze demand for market basket items, using restricted-access data made available through a partnership with personnel at the ERS-USDA. For one of the cross team papers, we will use the market basket items (e.g. milk, beef, potatoes) to bring together what we know about supply and demand for that item from all of our data analyses from the project. One of the doctoral students on the project will also conduct a literature review assessing linkages among community food security, regional food systems and food system vulnerabilities, specifically looking at each of the market basket items. The Distribution Team will complete the supply chain case studies and will integrate them with the work on store inventories conducted by the Consumption Team. We will collect data from secondary sources and from experts to fill in the information gaps from the interviews with supply chain members in each case study. The team has four papers planned: one will focus on the challenges and opportunities for independent supermarket companies in the Northeast; two will be based on the already-completed apple and potato supply chain models; and the fourth will extend the dairy model to analyze the impacts of localization in the US. The team will build experimental models to embed economies of scale concepts for identifying optimal locations of fresh produce assembly and distribution hubs and the number of establishments in each county level hub. Team members will calibrate and validate these models, and summarizing the collective findings about the hub network structure under different assumptions of operational conditions. Finally, we will examine the extent to which transitions toward healthier eating patterns can shift the demand for locally and regionally produced fresh produce in the U.S. and the amount of land that would need to be converted to accommodate a demand increase. A productivity index developed by the Production Team will be incorporated into models used by the Distribution Team. Dietary and resource scenarios will be assessed using the foodprint model for the Northeast region, and this will be published. Crop simulations for wheat production will be finalized, and used to assess current and future climate scenarios. We will complete analysis of urban and peri-urban production capacity and business location patterns. The Scenarios and Modeling (SCEMO) team will collaborate on cross-team papers that summarize findings across multiple domains of the food system (consumption, distribution, and production), particularly those that involve quantitative models. Three topics for cross-team papers were identified in the fifth reporting period, and each of these papers will be led by a member of the SCEMO team. In addition, the SCEMO team will continue the work of integrating results from the spatial analysis of soil productivity into the spatial equilibrium model of the fresh produce sector. Finally, SCEMO will organize and keep track of all the materials and presentations being prepared across the project during Year 6. The primary Year-6 objective for the Education Team is to summarize, in written form, the findings of the survey of EFSNE students and postdoctoral trainees. The final format for the paper is not yet determined, but two likely possibilities are an individual journal article or an article in a series on the EFSNE project. In addition to this primary objective, members of the Education Team will look for opportunities to bring recently published research from the EFSNE project into the courses they teach. The Outreach Team will focus on producing and disseminating research and related educational materials derived from project findings and processes. These will be in the form of publishable manuscripts, as well as briefs, articles and the like for general audiences. A decision regarding the publication of a book will be made early in Year 6. Outreach will complete the final phase of the Food Systems Modeling Learning Community by engaging with practitioners in a series of webinar trainings. We will produce at least two newsletters, and continue updating the website, with a focus on sharing project deliverables online.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Consumption Team members made significant progress in analyzing several years of customer intercept survey data, and began the analysis for the secondary datasets, which include structural determinants of store locations and purchase data. Preliminary results were presented at the December conference. For the secondary analysis, the team used county-level data and econometric methods to investigate why some areas have limited access to large food stores. Location leaders worked with project partners in several locations to share and increase awareness of project learnings through specific activities custom-designed to address needs, capacities and interests of the broader communities in each location. For example, Baltimore held a one-day workshop on how regional food factors into existing food system activities using a historical perspective to ground participants. Pittsburgh used a centennial community event in one of the sites to share research findings, explore the concept of regionalism and celebrate some of the community food work happening. In these communities, there is a greater understanding of the regional food systems concept, and some storeowners have reported that the project has improved their stores' outreach and success. Distribution Team members developed a protocol composed of several modules to conduct case studies of project stores that include detailed supply chain analyses of two market basket foods. Six case studies have been completed using these protocols and eight case studies are underway. Team members developed five product-specific supply chain optimization models (dairy, apples, cabbage, potato, and beef), which are properly calibrated to reflect current supply chain structure and product flows. The team has written three manuscripts (one published and two under review) to simulate the impacts of supply chains interventions. For example, the dairy model has been used to show that the current regional integration in the Northeast provides economic and environmental benefits; further localization of these chains can have unexpected negative economic and environmental impacts. Team members also have developed a model to identify size and locations for a national system of fresh produce production hubs, providing strong evidence of scale effects inherent in produce production hub operations and, in particular, scale effects in dominant growing regions (California and Florida) as a potential barrier to achieving greater self-reliance in the Northeast. Production Team members estimated current agricultural output of all major food and feed crops and livestock products, and found that Regional Self-Reliance of the region (production/consumption) varies widely depending on food product. Team members have had requests from New England, the Southeast region, and other Northeast states for the regional self-reliance protocol. The team developed and implemented protocols to estimate the potential for urban areas to produce food and to assess the location of food businesses in the urban/peri-urban/rural continuum. The Northeast foodprint model indicates that the region's agricultural land has the capacity, at current levels of crop yield and livestock productivity, to feed 11 million people. This is equivalent to 17% of the region's population. The influence of climate on yield of corn and potato was shown to have strong latitudinal dependence (i.e. north versus south gradients) compared to longitudinal (east versus west). Climate impacts will be significant for both crops, but more so for potato; however, simple adaptation measures can be applied to reduce the predicted losses in productivity. The Outreach Team, in cooperation with Consumption Team members, held a community-researcher workshop in November 2014 funded under separate competitively secured NIFA conference grant, resulting in stronger ties in target communities and increased knowledge among researchers about community partners. We continued to support the now-thriving Community, Local and Regional Food Systems eXtension Community of Practice, which has grown to become one of the largest CoPs in the Extension network. Outreach Team members convened several meetings of the national Food Systems Modeling Learning Community, in which food system modelers from various disciplines share their modeling methods via webinars and phone calls. Team members presented on the EFSNE project at the November 2015 NESAWG annual conference, and developed and updated outreach materials to inform stakeholders about project, including three e-newsletters. They also led the planning and execution of the December 2015 national conference, which we know was useful to many of the attendees regarding their own work and thinking, and strengthened ties between researchers and USDA staff members in attendance. The Education Team conducted a survey to assess how trainees perceived the educational value of their participation in the EFNSE project. The survey was sent via Qualtrics to 48 individuals who had been engaged in EFSNE research as part of their undergraduate education, graduate education, or postdoctoral training. Response rate was about 50 percent. Preliminary analysis of the results indicates that the project was particularly effective at developing three competency areas: appreciating the complexity of the food system, collaborating with people across disciplines and specializations, learning to work collaboratively with people who occupy different levels in the academic system. The project's internship program was once again offered through Penn State, allowing two undergraduate students to engage with the project at the Pittsburgh location for a ten-week period. At Delaware State University, a team member has continued efforts to form a team-taught experimental course that bridges nutrition and natural resources. The Scenarios and Modeling Team is acting as a model itself for other researchers, and is serving as an example of transdisciplinarity to other projects. The team completed a spatial analysis of the productivity of arable land by land-cover class for the Eastern U.S. (farm resource regions 3 through 9) using the National Commodity Crop Productivity Index (NCCPI). Team members are using results in conjunction with the Northeast foodprint model (see above) and with the spatial equilibrium model of the fresh produce sector (see above) to determine how an expansion of agricultural land area would impact crop yields. A plan for writing papers that synthesize research findings across the three food system domains (consumption, distribution, and consumption) is under development.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Berlin, L., Clancy, K., Hinrichs, C., and S. Rocker. Enhancing Food Security with Regional Food Systems Projects News. Presented at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Groups It Takes a Region annual conference, Saratoga Springs, NY, November 13, 2015.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Bonanno, A., L. Chenarides, and R. Lee. Assessing the Healthfulness of Food Purchases among Low-Income Area Shoppers in the Northeast. Presented at the 2015 Joint NAREA/CAES Joint Annual Meeting, Newport, RI, June 29, 2015
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Clancy, K. The EFSNE Project. Presented at the National Association of Counties Annual Legislative Meeting, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee. Washington, DC, February 20, 2016.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Clancy, K. Why regional? Incorporating a regional perspective into your work. Presented online as part of Chesapeake Foodshed Network's Coffee Talk webinar series on February 9, 2016.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Ge, H., P. Canning, S.J. Goetz, and A. Perez. Assessing the Supplier Role of Selected Optimal Locations of Fresh Produce Assembly Hubs in the United States. Presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association's 2015 AAEA and WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, July 26-28, 2015.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Griffin, T. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast: A presentation to the Northeast SARE Administrative Council. Burlington, VT, February 18, 2015.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Nicholson, C.F., Xi, H., G�mez, M.I., Gao, H. O. and E. Hill. Environmental and Economic Impacts of Localizing Food Systems: The Case of Dairy Supply Chains in the Northeastern United States. Environmental Science and Technology. Published online: September 24, 2015
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Palmer, A. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast. Presented at a Food Access class with 17 graduate students at Chatham University (via Skype).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Rocker, S. and C. Hinrichs. Expectations and Experiences Finding "Good" Food in Lower-Income Communities in the Northeast U.S. Presented at the Rural Sociological Society's 2015 Annual Meeting, Madison, WI, August 8, 2015.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Twenty team members prepared and presented talks at the December conference on the work of the consumption, distribution, production, SCEMO, education, and evaluation teams, as well as on two of the cross project papers and a network analysis of the project in year five.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Clancy, K. and D. Fleisher. Regional Food Systems Research: an Overview of the EFSNE Project. Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, MD, April 14, 2015.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Devlin, K. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast: A presentation to the Northeast SARE Professional Development Program meeting, Lewes, DE, July 20, 2015.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Etemadnia, H., Goetz, S., Canning, P., and Tavallali, M. Optimal wholesale facilities location within the fruit and vegetables supply chain with bimodal transportation options: An LP-MIP heuristic approach. European Journal of Operational Research. Published online: January 31, 2015.
|
Progress 03/01/14 to 02/28/15
Outputs
Target Audience: Our primary target audience includes extension educators, academic researchers, students in classrooms, USDA staff, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region. These include the members of the NIFA GFS projects around the country. As our research results are peer-reviewed, our target audience is expanding to consist of the supply chain members we have surveyed (especially the store owners), the surrounding community, non-profits and community groups working on food issues, and local, regional and federal policymakers where appropriate. Changes/Problems: Dr. Samuel Besong of Delaware State University has joined the project on the Consumption team, replacing Carol Giesecke, who has retired. Postdoctoral research associate Hamideh Etemadnia left the project in August to take a research position. Dr. Etemadnia was replaced by postdoctoral research associate Frank (Houtian) Ge, who works on the Distribution and SCEMO teams. Raychel Santo replaced Mia Cellucci at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future as a research assistant. Sarah Rocker began in 2014 as a research assistant at Penn State, while John Eshleman shifted to a new graduate assistant role in support of the EFSNE Management. The Outreach team was awarded a separate, competitively secured NIFA grant to conduct a community-researcher workshop in November 2014 with 26 project researchers, community leaders, grocery store owners and students. Although funded separately, the workshop further amplified our engagement with project communities and supported their execution of community activities on food system issues. Input provided by stakeholders during this event will continue to inform EFSNE activities for the remainder of the project. This report was sent by hard copy earlier because there was no progress shell in REEport to enter the report. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? In addition to the many presentations made at various conferences and meetings, the Food Systems Modeling Learning Community that was launched this year has provided 15 economists and biophysical scientists to learn from each other's work. In addition, a significant number of students are being trained via classroom instruction, applied research experiences, and internships. Furthermore, project team members have the opportunity to learn from colleagues who have different disciplinary backgrounds. Five MS students, 12 PhD students, 10 undergraduate students, and two postdoctoral scholars were trained under the project in Year 4, representing Columbia, Cornell, Delaware State, Johns Hopkins, Penn State and Tufts Universities and the University of Vermont. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Team members have delivered presentations and disseminated information about the project to our primary target audiences through a number of venues, including webinars, meetings of professional organizations, peer-reviewed journals, poster competitions, conferences, a quarterly e-newsletter, and the project website. Finally, salient findings from the research have been distributed to key stakeholders. For example, results from the community readiness studies have been shared with appropriate location leaders. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? During Year 5, the Consumption Team will thematically analyze the data collected over the life of the project, emphasizing both specific within-site results and cross-site patterns. We have discussed the need to interview some storeowners during Year 5 to better understand the barriers to increased regional sourcing. These results will be used in conjunction with previous storeowner interviews and will clarify what we have learned about the stores' sourcing and opportunities for additional regional sourcing. The data analysis will inform our decisions about how to combine results for a more complete examination of the research questions. For example, intercept surveys asked customers about primary and secondary food retail sources, which we can compare to focus group results and store typology to understand shifts in retail patterns. Using secondary data and storeowner interviews, we will examine how developments at our study stores compare to the changes in the overall retail marketplace, which has become more competitive in the last decade. Analysis of demand for market basket items will continue using restricted-access data (Nielsen Homescan) made available through a partnership with personnel at the ERS-USDA. Members of the Consumption team also will work with the Outreach and Distribution teams to develop resources for storeowners, describing what we have learned. The Distribution team will complete data collection for the supply chain case studies by concluding interviews with intermediaries and using secondary data to fill any gaps left by interviews. The team will complete the tables and qualitative analysis of case study data and finish writing the series of case studies. We will complete technical documents for the six sector optimization models and will write two manuscripts based on these models. The Distribution team will also integrate a new model that considers economies of scale with the fresh market vegetable and highly perishable fruits models. The team will complete the development of Nonlinear Mixed Integer MP models for fresh vegetables and fruits to assess the cost and scale of optimal investment in new regional distribution infrastructure. The analysis of consumption and demand for a subset of market basket items has begun. A first paper on fluid-milk demand in the Northeast will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Contingent upon the hiring of a postdoctoral fellow, the analysis will proceed focusing on other market basket items. If the article is accepted, model simulations will be added to the current draft. Production and Distribution team researchers will finalize plans for an integrated land-use/market-clearing model of fresh produce production in the Northeast. A productivity index will be finalized and used in scenario assessment by the Production team. A foodprint model for the Northeast region and the assessment of regional livestock feed self-reliance will both be completed and published. Crop simulations for the region will be extended to include wheat production under current and future climate scenarios. We will complete analysis of urban and peri-urban production capacity and business location patterns. The Scenarios and Modeling team will complete the list of scenario abstracts, continue adapting scenario templates to each modeling effort, develop a complete list of metrics, and continue exploring the potential for data sharing across modeling efforts. In addition, we will assist in identifying crosscutting themes to be presented at the EFSNE end-of- project conference. The Education team will continue to incorporate food systems material into existing courses. Penn State will continue its internship program in summer of 2015. Efforts to document student learning across the entire project will continue through surveys, interviews, and/or focus groups. The Outreach team will host a national conference featuring the project results and will organize a workshop at NESAWG's conference scheduled for November 2015. We will continue to disseminate project information to stakeholders via e-newsletters and the website. We will synthesize research results into outreach materials that are accessible and useful to community-based stakeholders. The Outreach team leader will maintain a presence on the eCoP leadership team. The Food Systems Modeling Learning Community (LC) will invite other researchers (who do not currently do modeling) to participate. Then, we will design a series of calls and/or webinars intended for practitioners.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The Consumption team carried out several activities across each of the eight project locations including conducting intercept surveys, focus groups, store inventories and secondary data analysis. For the third year, we have conducted customer intercepts at the 14 sites for a total of ~ 3,000 surveys collected. Using the intercept data, preliminary results of an econometric analysis of the relationship between perceived barriers to acquiring healthy foods and the presence of food stores were presented at the 2014 AAEA meeting in Minneapolis, MN. Sixteen focus groups were conducted this year, witha total of 33 focus groups now completed across the eight locations in two separate years. This second round of focus groups included 134 participants, averaging eight participants per group. Consumption team members are reviewing the focus group data,analyzing them individually and comparatively with the round-one findings. Integrated cross-site analysis across the focus groups and across the two data collection points is proceeding, focused on diverse definitions of healthy eating, regional food, and the matrix of considerations that influence people's food-buying practices. Location leadershave completed the annual store inventory in all eight locations. Annual county-level data from several sources were collected to determine structural determinants of access to food stores. The Distribution team made substantial progress in the development of sector optimization models to characterize the supply chains of focal market basket food products in the region. These models are the critical tools needed to identify best practices for developing regional supply chains including cost efficiencies. The apple andcabbage model have been completed, along with a related working paper and masters thesis. The basic framework for the potato model was created. We employed the dairy model to assess the impacts of increasing localization of the Northeast fluid milk supply on food miles, supply chain costs, greenhouse gas (GHG) and criteria pollutant emissions and employment. After extensive data collection was completed for the beef model in collaboration with the Production team, we continue to collect transportation cost and capacity data from regional and national chains to more accurately calibrate the model. The Production team continued to compare the relative accuracy of three crop-specific acreage datasets to inform research on yield trends, production zone patterning and carrying capacity estimations. A manuscript summarizing this work has been prepared. We have nearly completed research on the "foodprint" of the Northeast region of the US, estimating the land requirements of human diets and theoretical carrying capacity of the land base. Following the estimation of the urban agriculture capacity of New York City (by Production team member Conard, Columbia University), the data protocol was extended to the other urban study sites included in the project. Research is also underway evaluating the location of farms and food-related businesses within peri-urban areas surrounding each of the six urban sites in the project. Members of the Education team continued to implement various strategies to support the project's education objectives. At Tufts University, Dr. Peters used EFSNE project material in a new course titled "Food Systems Modeling and Analysis" in Spring 2014. Food systems topics continue to be included in two other Tufts University courses. At Penn State, two undergraduate students accepted internships and both were placed with the Pittsburgh project site for a period of 10 weeks. At Delaware State University, three students assisted with data collection this fall. Seven graduate students attended the annual in-person team meeting. The Outreach team continued to support the eXtension Community of Practice (eCoP) on Community, Local and Regional Food Systems, helping to organize a national eXtension conference on community food systems in September 2014. Team members presented on the EFSNE project at the 2014 NESAWG annual conference. We launched the first phase of the project's Food Systems Modeling Learning Community in which food system modelers from various disciplines participate in conference calls and webinars to share their modeling methods. New outreach materials were developed to inform stakeholders about the project. Four e-newsletters were distributed to approximately 300 stakeholders. In a collaboration between the Outreach and Consumption teams, a community readiness assessment was conducted for six of the eight project communities to measure each community's readiness for change in the area of food access. The subsequent reports were shared with the project's site and location leaders and increased understanding of the communities' capacity to expand upon EFSNE activities
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Etemadnia, H. Optimal Wholesale Logistic Network within a Fruit and Vegetables Supply Chain System: A LP-MIP Heuristic Approach. Invited talk at Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, April 23, 2014 and also at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, April 24, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Fleisher, D. Assessing Vulnerability and Adaptation Potential of Northeast Agriculture to Climate Change. Presented as part of a webinar sponsored by the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development on climate change and its implications for local and regional food systems. April 25, 2014. (not included on CD, but available online at: http://goo.gl/UZz2Xp)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Fleisher, D.H. Climate Change and Northeast Agriculture: Vulnerabilities and Adaptation. Invited presentation and panel chair at 2014 Nourish New Haven Conference, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, September 20, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Fleisher, D.H. From Leaf to Canopy: Quantifying CO2 and T Effects on Plant Growth at Different Scales. Invited presentation at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA, November 3, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Fleisher, D.H., J.P. Resop, D. Timlin, and V.R. Reddy. Mapping Regional Production Capacity and Climate Change Sensitivity. Poster presented at 2014 University of Maryland - Beltsville USDA-ARS 3rd Annual Trends in Agriculture Symposium, Beltsville, MD, January 13, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Clancy, K., A. Palmer, K. Ruhf, and L. Berlin. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast: Focus on Communities. Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Groups It Takes a Region annual conference, Saratoga Springs, NY, November 11, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Goetz, S. Enhancing the Food Security of Underserved Populations in the Northeast U.S. through Sustainable Regional Food Systems Development. Presented via webinar as part of a Southern Regional Center for Rural Development workshop: Local and Regional Foods in the South, Atlanta, GA, 12/11/2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
G�mez M.I. and DA. Yeh. Supply Chain Impacts of an Increased Vegetable Demand: The Case of Cabbage. 2014 CCE Agriculture and Food Systems In- Service, Ithaca, NY, November 18, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Griffin, T. 2014. Regional Food Systems: A View from the Northeast, Invited seminar at the Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI, March 21, 2014.
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Yeh, A. Supply Chain Impacts of an Increased Vegetable Demand: The Case Of Cabbage. Masters of Science Thesis, Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Peters, C. 2014. Capacity of the Northeast to Meet Human Dietary Needs and the Implications for Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems. Invited seminar at Penn State, University Park PA, May 2, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Rocker, S., K. Devlin, and S.J. Goetz. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast through Regional Food Systems (EFSNE): Taking a Multi-Disciplinary, Systems Approach to Food Security and Food Systems Research, Outreach and Education. Poster presented at the eXtension CLRFS 2014 Food Security Conference, Cleveland, OH, Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2014.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Griffin, T., Z. Conrad, C. Peters, R. Ridberg and E. Parry Tyler, Regional Self- Reliance of the Northeast Food System, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Published online: 26 February 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Hinrichs, C., J. Eshleman, A. Palmer, and L. Berlin. Food Shopping as Social Practice: Navigating Access in Lower Income Communities. Joint annual meetings of Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and Association for the Study of Food and Society, Burlington, VT, June 18-21, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Bonanno, A., L. Chenarides, A. Palmer, K. Clancy. Perceived Barriers to Purchasing Healthy Foods vs. Access in Underserved Areas across the Northeast. 2014 Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Minneapolis, MN, July 27-29, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Clancy, K. Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast through Regional Food Systems. Presented at:EFSNE Community-Researcher Workshop, Reisterstown, MD, November 5, 2014; American Planning Association Pennsylvania Chapter Annual Meeting, October 14, 2014; and, AFRI Food Security Sustainable Food Systems Project Director Workshop, Washington, DC, September 29, 2014.
|
Progress 02/28/13 to 02/27/14
Outputs
Target Audience: In the short-term, our primary target audience includes extension educators, academic researchers, students in classrooms, staff throughout USDA, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region. These include the members of the NIFA GFS projects around the country. In the long-term, as our research results are peer-reviewed, our target audience will expand to consist of the supply chain members we have surveyed, including especially the store owners, the surrounding community, non-profits and community groups working on food issues, as well as local, regional and federal policymakers where appropriate. Changes/Problems: One of our stores in Baltimore, MD was forced to shut down very recently for economic reasons, but we were able to locate a replacement store in a short amount of time. Another store, in upstate New York, was found not to carry a sufficient quantity and quality of market basket food items, and had to be dropped from the study. We also determined that in some of the locations it was very helpful to offer consumers a small incentive ($5) for responding to the consumer intercept survey. This relatively small amount of funds has helped greatly in securing more responses in those locations where traffic to the stores is limited. In order to assure optimal integration across each of the original objectives teams, we established a new group, called Scenarios and Modeling (SCEMO). In New York, there was a change in location leaders for the Madison County site and the Syracuse locations. CCE educator Kathy Dischner took over for Sue Parker and Derek Simmonds. Anita Bono is working with Dischner on all the activities for these locations. In West Virginia, the site leader passed away and Bonnie Dunn recently identified a new one. Mia Cellucci from JHU-CLF took a new position and we are actively recruiting to replace her. Mia supported the consumption group’s work and provided support for team calls. We are recruiting Mia’s replacement, and Kristen Devlin is assisting with team-call support on an interim basis. Alessandro Bonanno’s status at Penn State has changed from Assistant Professor to Adjunct Assistant Professor but his involvement in the CONS team activities remains unchanged. He also holds a position at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. In order to improve both internal and external communications of this very large and spatially dispersed project, we have hired a communications professional, Kristen Devlin. This has already paid off tremendously in expanding our outreach (e.g., the project website) as well as in assuring smooth communications among project team members. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? In addition to a large number of presentations made at various conferences and meetings, a significant number of students is being trained under this project. This includes classroom instruction, applied research experiences, and internships, as well as postdoctoral scholars whose training is benefitting from their participation in the project. Furthermore, each of the participants has the opportunity to learn from colleagues who have different disciplinary backgrounds. Specific students who are being trained include: Columbia University Danielle Berger, M.S. Student in Urban Planning Challey Comer, M.S. Student in Sustainability Management Jessica Weiss, M.S. Student in Public Health Cornell University Xi He (Alex), Civil Engineering PhD student Elaine Hill, Economics and Management (AEM) PhD candidate Dourong Adeline Yeh (Adeline), AEM master’s student Delaware State University Rosalyn Battle and Bria Shelton, undergraduates in Human Ecology Department Endreya Jones, Grishma Patel and Stephanie Williams-Rodrigue, undergraduate seniors in Human Ecology Department (graduated in May 2013) Jessica Teachout, undergraduate in Human Ecology Department. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Carrie Burns, MSPH student Megan Clayton, PhD Candidate Ryan Lee, PhD student Penn State University Lauren Chenarides, PhD student John Eshleman, PhD Dr. Hamideh Etemadnia, postdoctoral scholar Olivia Lindsay, undergraduate student Tufts University Five students enrolled in the directed study (Liza Bemis, Glennon Beresin, Nelly Czajkowski, Tai Ullman, Wendy Mainardi) Zach Conrad, PhD student Graham Jeffries, PhD student Kat Loeck, M.S. student Valerie Ota, M.S. Students Emily Piltch, PhD student Nicole Tichenor PhD student University of Vermont Kristyn Achilich, Masters Student in Food Systems USDA-ARS Beltsville, Maryland Dr. Jonathan Resop, post-doctoral associate How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Team members have delivered major project presentations and disseminated information about the project to our near-term target audiences (described below) through a number of venues, including webinars, meetings of professional associations, peer-reviewed journals, poster competitions, press releases, and conferences. We are also starting to disseminate salient findings from the research to the key stakeholders, including store owners in the study sites as well as focus group participants. For example, we sent summaries of the focus groups to the site leaders and summaries of the intercept surveys to store owners. The project hired a communications coordinator, who has been collaborating with many members of the project team to develop content for dissemination via our website and forthcoming newsletter. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Summarize activities planned and expected outputs, outcomes and impacts to be realized during year four. During year four of the project, we will conduct a second round of focus groups in each location. Data will be thematically analyzed, with emphasis both on specific within-site results to inform other project objectives and on cross-site patterns in the subjective experience of food access and a comparison of the initial round of focus groups. Econometric modeling and analysis of the data collected in year three will continue. Upon completion of the first round of consumer intercept and store inventory surveys, analysis of the primary data collected will begin. The Consumption Team will conduct the store inventory twice per year, which includes the store environment and availability of all items in the market basket. We will conduct a third round of shopper intercept surveys in all sites and then analyze the data and interpret the information for use by the stores and in the communities. A data analysis plan has been developed for the intercept survey, store inventory and the secondary databases that will be used to assess the relationship between store features, product assortment and prices of healthy food. This plan will be implemented during year four and it will include econometric analysis of consumer demand using restricted-access data (Nielsen Homescan) made available through a partnership with personnel at the ERS-USDA. A linearly approximated Almost Ideal Demand System will be estimated via a two-step consistent estimator to address data censoring issues, and the analysis will account for different product characteristics. Collection of county-level data (all contiguous U.S. counties) on food store locations has been completed and the analysis refined to include nine years of data. The research will account for the role of primary and secondary activities in determining consumers’ physical access to large food stores. The Distribution Team will complete the remaining case study data collection and write-up the remaining case studies. These will be synthesized into a report for dissemination, cross-site comparisons and to inform other project activities. In particular, the Distribution Team will prepare lessons from the case study data collection that will be useful in the project’s on-going policy simulation work. The Distribution Team will also complete the cabbage, beef and potato optimization models to be employed in policy simulations. The apple model will be modified at a more detailed level of resolution in the Northeast region to conduct a series of simulations on how interventions may affect the structure and efficiency of the Northeastern apple sector. The group will also produce the technical reports detailing these models, and will publish at least two policy-oriented manuscripts based on the optimization models. Additionally, the Distribution Team will complete a seasonal fresh vegetable market supply chain model and examine the costs and viability of greater self-reliance on regional vegetable production in the Northeastern region. The team will also carry out a proof-of-concept model that links land use modeling work, labor market data, and a multimarket agri-food chain equilibrium model to examine land and labor conditions in the study region. Climate change and productivity assessments for the region will be completed for potato, corn, and wheat (USDA-ARS-Beltsville). An aggregated yield index based on the contributions of the three crops will be developed as an analogue for the region’s production capacity (USDA-ARS-Beltsville and Tufts). Results are expected to identify opportunities for improving regional food security by exploring optimal land-use and management strategies, including adaptation responses to climate change. A foodprint model for the Northeast region will be completed (Tufts). The Scenarios and Modeling team will develop a complete list of metrics, adapt scenario templates to each modeling effort, and develop a productivity index for use in partial equilibrium model analysis of the vegetable sector. The Education team will continue to incorporate food systems material into existing courses and team members from Tufts University will introduce a new course on food system modeling. Penn State will continue its internship program, and students associated with the entire project will capture their learning through interviews. The Outreach Team Leader will continue to participate on eCoP Leadership Team, for which the public launch is planned for spring 2014. Outputs will include the public site with at least twelve articles published to the eCoP. The impact will be increased learning and networking through a widely accessible public website on community, local and regional food systems. If separate funding is approved, EFSNE will conduct a two-day workshop for the project team and community leaders from each project location. The impact of this will be greater buy-in by project communities and significant learning by community representatives through sharing with other communities. We will also hold our third annual workshop at NESAWG’s It Takes a Region conference scheduled for November 2014. In the EFSNE Outreach Plan, there are 17 distinct sectors to reach, including students, the press, academics and grocery store owners in our sites. In year four we will continue to develop our database of contacts in each category and disseminate information about the project. We will ramp up our outreach to the press. The outcome will be more awareness about our project, more networking and connections among academics doing similar work, more input into the project from practitioners and others on the ground, and increased engagement in regional food system issues. Topical Learning Communities: The topic of modeling tools in food system research will be the focus of this LC. In coordination with Chris Peters the OUTR team will host at least three webinars and will invite agricultural economists and bio-physical researchers outside our region who are doing similar work for Phase I. Phase I will consist of peer learning among those actively engaged in food systems modeling. Later in the year we will open the LC to the wider community, focusing on practitioners and academics who can work with food system models and modelers. The outcome will be significantly advanced modeling knowledge and skills among researchers doing this work, and increased ability of non-researchers to engage modeling in their food system work. Site-based Learning Communities: The OUTR Team will integrate the results from the Community Readiness assessments with our stakeholder engagement plan and the CONS Team’s Community Involvement Plan. LC activities at the community level will depend on the results of these findings; they may include workshops, meetings, publications, trainings, public presentations, etc. The proposed workshop will enhance each site LC’s capacity by learning and sharing with each other. Educational materials: The OUTR Team will complete new project narratives and branding activities consisting of a new logo, a PPT slide deck for presentations and graphic and editorial style manuals. The outcome will be much improved communication about the EFSNE project that will enhance academic and community awareness and understanding of our project. We will upload and disseminate materials generated by the other EFSNE teams. Web resources: With Communications Coordinator, we will continue to update and enhance the website and collect project information to upload. Materials under development (branding, slide deck) will be integrated with website.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The project team has made excellent progress during the last year on each of the stated goals, as detailed in the following text. The Consumption Team completed and analyzed over 900 consumer intercept surveys in 9 locations and surveyed 168 community residents across 17 focus groups, in addition to conducting store-level inventories. We are starting to analyze the intercept data and are preparing user-friendly reports to be distributed to key project stakeholders in the different communities. Focus group participant characteristics are: mean age 53; 72% female; 76% primary household shopper; 47% receive food assistance; 30% diet-related disease in household. Consumption Team members Hinrichs and Eshleman have reviewed the transcripts and conducted preliminary site-by-site analysis of the transcripts. Individual 4-page focus group reports have been written, edited and are now being shared by site leaders with store owners. Integrated, cross-site analysis across the focus groups is now proceeding, focused on diverse definitions of healthy eating and the matrix of considerations that influence people’s food buying practices. Location leaders completed the store inventory tool in all eight locations by the end of November, with the exception of the new store in Baltimore. That inventory will be completed in December at the new store. Annual county-level data from several sources have been collected to determine structural determinants of access to food stores. Data collection has been completed resulting in a database for the contiguous U.S. spanning 9 years of data, with focus on large stores. The analysis has been refined and results presented at different venues. Results show that lack of demand is the largest contributor to limited access (i.e., large stores shy away from areas where demand is not sizeable); the presence of linkages with other members of the food supply chain also plays an important role. The Distribution Team has made considerable progress on their case studies as well. They have revised survey protocols at three levels of the supply chain: retailer, intermediary and grower. They have developed a working draft of supply chain case studies in two locations and three sites. These will be used for outreach on the project website and to disseminate findings back to contributing retailers. In addition, case study data collection is underway in six locations in seven sites. Initial findings from the case studies have been disseminated at conferences. The Distribution Team also has made substantial progress in their optimization models for dairy, beef, cabbage, and apple. Distribution Team members Canning and Etemadnia have developed maximum likelihood estimates of total annual food production and food consumption broken out into over 50 commodity groups for each U.S. County. Team members have combined these datasets with other data developed previously and with a multi-modal transportation network county-to-county impedance database to formulate and test several innovative new modeling platforms that help to explain the costs and disposition of food distribution networks serving the Northeastern U.S. The Production Team initiated research on the “foodprint” of the Northeast region of the US. The “foodprint” model estimates the land requirements of human diets and theoretical carrying capacity of a land base. The Tufts group is adapting a foodprint model for the U.S. (developed through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded “Foodprints and Foodsheds Project”) to the 12-state Northeast region. To further the foodprint research, the Tufts team explored the seasonality of produce shipments using data from USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. These data were used to understand the capacity for regional supply to provide for regional consumption. Productivity assessments, including means and associated spatial and temporal variances, were completed for corn and potato under various land-use, management, and climate change scenarios. A wheat crop model was added to the Geospatial Agricultural Management Crop Assessment Framework (GAMCAF), which also showed that the region’s ability to provide for its own consumption needs for potatoes could be increased from 33 to 41% above the baseline value. Preliminary studies involving the effect of mid-century climate change impact on potato and corn production in the region showed a potential decline in yields of up to 70% for potato and 17% for corn without adaptation measures. We have also created a new objectives group, Scenarios and Modeling, to ensure efficient integration across the objectives. This is being led by Christian Peters. In support of the project’s education objectives, materials on food systems topics have been added to existing courses at Delaware State University (Concepts in Nutrition), Penn State University (Food Products Marketing), and Tufts University (Agricultural Science and Policy II and Fundamentals of U.S. Agriculture). At Tufts University, Drs. Griffin and Peters offered a directed-study course in spring 2013 to engage students in EFSNE-related research. Five students took the course, which focused on the development of a proposal to implement a farmer survey that complements on-going research of the EFSNE project. The final product was a narrative for a grant application to an AFRI Foundational RFA for a project to conduct a farmer survey on challenges to marketing food regionally in the Northeast U.S. At Penn State, the first undergraduate intern was placed in the Penn State Center for Engaging Pittsburgh for a 10-week regional food systems internship that was extended through the fall of 2013, due to the success of the arrangement. At Delaware State University, three undergraduate students were trained to collect store intercept data, and did so in fall 2012. They also attended the Association of Research Directors Meeting in Jacksonville, FL in April, 2013. The Outreach Team continued to play an instrumental role in developing the new eXtension Community of Practice (eCoP) on Community, Local, and Regional Food Systems. It also produced outputs that included two national webinars. Outreach Team members presented on the project at both the NESAWG annual conference and the NE Sustainable Ag and Food System funders meeting, and submitted a grant application to USDA for a project team/community workshop. Team members revised project outreach materials (two-pager, longer narrative, branding improvements), updated the Stakeholder Outreach Plan and Community Involvement Plan, and held the first interviews in its Community Readiness research project. The project has also hired a communications coordinator to work with the Outreach Team in developing overall project communications. A notable achievement is that the new CoP on CLRFS has already attracted over 250 members, in addition to becoming self-supporting and thus sustainable. We have discovered over the course of the project's three years that a tremendous amount of work is required in a number of process and administrative areas. One of these is evaluation. Teams are evaluating their work every year and we are just completing an anonymous internal project survey to measure the team members’ satisfaction with the project’s administrative and process components. We are augmenting this work with surveys to map the networking that is occurring across the project. Another example is the organization of the annual team meetings, such as the very successful one held in Saratoga Springs, NY in September 2013. Another example is the day-to-day flexibility that we find is needed as multiple elements, for example project personnel, stores, student interest, and other things change over time. This is expected in such a large project and requires time and attention, but does also add to the success of the project.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Griffin, T. The Balance of Food Production and Consumption in New England. New England Convening. May 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Griffin, T,. Regional Food Systems in the NE United States: Status, Possibilities, and Food Security. Invited seminar at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA. March 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Griffin, T., Z.S. Conrad, C.J. Peters, R. Ridberg, and E.T. Parry. Regional Self Reliance of the Northeast Food System. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (accepted for publication).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Resop, J., Fleisher, D., Wang, Q., Timlin, D., Reddy, V. An Aggregated Crop Yield Index to Explore Regional Potential Production Capacity. USDA-ARS, Crop Systems and Global Change Lab, Beltsville, MD. 2012.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Resop, J., Mapping Potato Productivity over the U.S. Eastern Seaboard using a Geospatial Crop Model. ASABE Annual International Meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. July 22nd, 2013
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Resop, J., D. Fleisher, D. Timlin, V. Reddy. Evaluating the Sensitivity of Regional Production to Planting Date and Climate Change using a Yield Index. USDA-ARS, Crop Systems and Global Change Lab. Beltsville, Maryland. 2013
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Resop, J., Fleisher, D., Timlin, D., Reddy, V. Biophysical Constraints to Potential Production Capacity of Potato across the U.S. Eastern Seaboard Region. Agronomy Journal, Volume 106, Issue I. 2014
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Peters, C.J. Modeling Capacity to Meet Food Needs through Local and Regional Production Systems. Webinar presentation as part of An Open Forum to Strengthen Collaborations between Research, Outreach, and Education for the Northeast Food System. Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, May 31, 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Bonanno, A., L. Chenarides, and R. Volpe. The Size vs. Health Trade-off in Lower-income Households Food Choices: The Case of Fluid Milk. Selected Paper, AAEA & CAES Joint Annual Meeting, Washington, DC. August 4-6, 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
DeFauw, S.L., A.K. Hoshide, P.J. English, A. Plant, S.J. Goetz, J.M. Halloran, and R.P. Larkin. 2013. Maine Potato Farms: Remotely Sensed Cropping System Dynamics and Applied Econometrics . Presented at American Society of Agronomy Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL. Nov. 3-6, 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
English, P.J., S.L. DeFauw, A.K. Hoshide, A. Plant. Potato Farms in Maine: Geospatial Assessments of Land Use Dynamics and Economies of Scale. Presented at American Society of Agronomy annual meeting, Cincinnati, OH. October, 24, 2012.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Etemadnia, H., S.J. Goetz, P. Canning, M.S. Tavallali.(2014). Optimal Wholesale Facilities Location within the Fruit and Vegetables Supply Chain: A LP-MIP Heuristic Approach. Transportation Research Board, 93rd Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA. January 12-16.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Fleisher, D., J. Resop, D. Timlin, V. Reddy. GAMCAF: A Geospatial Agricultural Management and Crop Assessment Framework for Regional Food Security. USDA-ARS Crop Systems and Global Change, Beltsville, MD. University of Maryland, Department of Geography, College Park, MD. 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Griffin, T., C. Peters, D. Fleisher, S. DeFauw, J. Resop. Development of a Regional Aggregated Crop Yield Index. Tufts University, Boston, MA. November 2013
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Griffin, T. Maines Role in Creating a Sustainable Regional Food System: Opportunities and Challenges. Maine Food Summit. December 2013.
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Progress 02/29/12 to 02/27/13
Outputs
Target Audience: In the short-term, our primary target audience includes academic researchers, staff throughout USDA, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region. These include the members of the NIFA GFS projects around the country. In the long-term, our target audience consists of the supply chain members we have surveyed, including especially the storeowners, the surrounding community, non-profits and community groups working on food issues, as well as local, regional and federal policymakers where appropriate. Changes/Problems: As result of weather events beyond project members’ control, the annual project meeting had to be cancelled twice in a row. To deal with this problem the project hosted a series of three two-hour long conference calls during which each of the objectives teams provided updates. Further, members of the production and distribution teams were able to meet in New York City during the summer of 2012. The next all-team meeting is scheduled for September 6-7, 2013 in Saratoga Springs, NY. Delay of site activities: A change in personnel has resulted in a delay at the New York City sites. The collaborator is scheduled to complete the intercept surveys and the store inventory this summer. The project is presently working with only one store in the Philadelphia site because significant concurrent local activity of other organizations made it very difficult to recruit a second store. One focus group has already been conducted at that site and a second will be held this summer. Changes in data collection: The consumer intercept surveys have been revised to reflect issues in administering the instruments, and concerns about how respondents were interpreting the questions. Due to staffing and weather-related issues, the intercepts were conducted over several months, rather than during the two-month period. This year data collection will be condensed to a relatively short window in the fall. In addition, because of small store size in rural areas especially, number of customers and a lack of incentives, some data collectors were not able to get 100 surveys per store. Collaborators at some sites spent several days collecting data and had to deal with numerous refusals. Other sites were able to collect the targeted 100 surveys within a few days. One site used incentives and had a great response rate. For this next year, we plan to offer incentives of $5 each to respondents to increase the sample size. Secondary data limitations: Project researchers are limited by the availability of secondary data on food prices at the level of detail necessary to assess the relationship between store features, product assortment and prices. As the intercept survey and store inventory data collection continues, the focus of the secondary data analysis has shifted to assessing price responsiveness and demand for items in the market basket. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Opportunities for training and professional development were provided to Elaine Hill (PhD student, Applied Economics, Cornell), who is contributing to the case studies and the accompanying training manuals; Adeline Yeh (MS student, Applied Economics, Cornell) who is developing the cabbage optimization model; Alex He (PhD student, Engineering, Cornell) who developed the dairy optimization model and is writing a paper to assess the benefits of a regionalized fluid milk system; Charlotte Ambrozek (undergraduate student, Applied Economics, Cornell), who earned independent research credits under the supervision of Co-PI Gomez and collected secondary data for the supply chain case studies; and Hamideh Etemadnia (postdoctoral research associate, Penn State), who is contributing to MITERS data development and simulation modeling. Furthermore, six Tufts graduate students participated in regular research meetings of the production research group and of the entire project. Also, Tufts graduate students were able to participate in research activities to establish the baseline of food production and consumption in the region and the productivity index. In addition, they successfully developed a regional model of beef production and have examined the spatial clustering of farms and supply chain businesses for meat products and fruits and vegetables. This latter effort involved close collaboration between students at Tufts and at Penn State, and it integrates across the project’s production, distribution and consumption objectives. A number of opportunities for training were provided, as follows. Student research conducted in the 2012 directed study (Tufts University) was presented at the 2013 NESAWG meeting, and questions on food culture that were developed as part of the 2012 directed study at Tufts University. Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and Tufts University students developed a focus group guide for Boston and Baltimore that addresses perceptions of regional and local food. Also, cross-institutional collaboration of graduate students occurred in the implementation of the consumer intercept surveys and the supply chain modeling of beef. Five graduate students in the 2013 directed study focused on the development of a survey instrument to better understand farmer constraints to participating in regional food systems. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Major project presentations have been made to academic researchers, staff throughout USDA, and non-profit organizations who are interested in the issues we are studying in the Northeast region. These include the members of the NIFA GFS projects around the country. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? During the next reporting period the team will analyze and interpret results of consumer and store surveys, and then share them with team members and selected stakeholders in the sites. Data analysis will continue, and another round of intercept surveys is planned for 2013-2014. The store inventory tool will be used for the 2013-14 data collection efforts. A data analysis plan has been developed for the intercept survey, store inventory and the secondary databases that will be used to assess the relationship between store features, product assortment and prices of healthy food. This plan will be implemented during the next reporting period and it will include econometric analysis of consumer demand using restricted-access data (Nielsen Homescan) made available through a partnership with personnel at the ERS-USDA. A linearly-approximated Almost Ideal Demand System will be estimated via a two-step consistent estimator to address data censoring issues, and the analysis will account for different milk fat content and packaging size. The Distribution team will develop beef, cabbage and apple optimization models. It will complete case studies in Syracuse and Madison County as well as the training manuals, and it will train collaborators to initiate the supply chain case studies. The team will use the dairy model to simulate the impact of alternative policies impacting the production and flows of fluid milk. The production-related results will be written up in the next reporting period and the farmer-level primary surveys will be administered. Yield estimates and trend projections will be completed for all relevant crops. During the upcoming reporting period, undergraduate internships will be offered through Penn State University, and directed study will be offered for a third time at Tufts University, most likely focusing on the farmer survey. Also, project-based material will continue to be incorporated into existing courses at DSU, Penn State, and Tufts. Students also will again have the opportunity to participate in conferences. The Outreach Team has developed a stakeholder engagement strategy and will establish two learning communities during the next reporting period. A Community Involvement Plan (CIP) has been prepared to set out strategies and activities to engage community members. The Plan will provide a guide on how to involve communities meaningfully in achieving research objectives; foster awareness among project communities affected by food system problems; and build community knowledge and capacity to work on food system problems. Each CIP will seek to balance the project's technical and scientific objectives with the interests and needs of the community. It contains worksheets to help community leaders and Project representatives identify participants and issues, and it specifies a process, possible activities, and responsibilities. The site-based learning communities mentioned above will launch from this model, with involvement from a UVM graduate student who will interview community members and help them to identify food system needs. We plan also to convene the site leaders into a learning community. The topical learning community subject under discussion is that of modeling a community’s diet based on land use. The SCHEMO work will continue over the next reporting period, during which additional scenarios will be developed and described in narrative form. Furthermore, the team will develop a plan for data integration and it will investigate several scenarios for regional production of apples through quantitative integration of data and modeling techniques from the three research teams (consumption, distribution and production).
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Consumption team members along with location leaders and students completed 17 separate focus groups in the nine locations. Researchers at Penn State have started to analyze transcripts by themes, emphasizing both specific within-site results to inform other project objectives and cross-site patterns in the subjective experience of food access. Using the training manual developed for the intercept and store inventory surveys, location leaders have trained teams of data collectors in each location. Eight of the 9 sites have conducted the store intercept surveys. Penn State project staff has started to enter the survey data, and data entry will be duplicated to rule out data entry errors. The store inventory of market basket items was completed in eight of the nine locations to coincide with the collection of the intercept survey. Using the existing store inventory, the literature on store environments was reviewed and a series of questions added to reflect what is considered by the team to be most important for this project. Collection of county-level data (all contiguous U.S.) on food stores location has been completed and the analysis refined to include nine years of data. The research will account for the role of primary and secondary activities in determining consumers’ physical access to large food stores. The Distribution team has completed a draft of the supply chain case studies covering Store 1 in Syracuse and Store 1 in Madison County, NY. Supply chain case study interview guides were revised and a training manual was drafted to train collaborators at the other sites. An optimization model for fluid milk was completed, while optimization models for apples, cabbage and beef were initiated. These will be completed during the next reporting period. MITERS data development was completed, and calibration of the baseline simulation model is underway. The Production team was able to complete the baseline comparison of food production and consumption in the Northeast region and it also quantified regional productivity and agricultural land use trends for the region over the period 1980-2010. Multi-year crop production footprints were successfully estimated for the primary crops grown in the region. In addition, crop simulation modeling for corn and potato was completed at the sub-county level throughout the entire region using baseline land-use data. Geospatial differences in production due to rain-fed versus irrigated management options were explored for potato production. The team has initiated the urban agricultural potential estimation for six major urban areas in the region. The Education team’s accomplishments included modifying existing courses taught at Delaware State, Penn State and Tufts Universities to include content related to food security and food systems. Further, directed studies to engage Masters’ degree students in EFSNE-related research were offered by Drs. Griffin and Peters (Tufts University) in the spring 2012 and spring 2013 semesters. A literature review was completed under the direction of Dr. Hinrichs to develop a list of best management practices for the implementation of undergraduate internships. The Outreach team’s signature accomplishment was to successfully compete for an eXtension grant in the amount of $50,000, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin at Madison and The Ohio State University. This group is leading the development of the Community, Local and Regional Food Systems eXtension Community of Practice which already has nearly 200 members, even though it was launched only very recently. The CoP has 8 working groups that are developing selection criteria for and soliciting content, and organizing webinars, among other tasks. In February, the project again presented a workshop at the annual conference of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, in Saratoga Springs, NY. The team was also invited to make a presentation about the project to members of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders. These funders have shown great interest in this project, and they include the Henry P. Kendall Foundation; Castanea Foundation, Inc.; Lawson Valentine Foundation; The John Merck Fund; The Doe Fund Claneil Foundation; Ben & Jerry's Foundation Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities; North Star Fund Cedar Tree Foundation; Island Foundation; New England Grassroots Environment Fund; Fair Food Network; van Beuren Charitable Foundation; Triskeles Foundation; Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation; and WellMet Group Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. The Scenarios and Modeling (SCEMO) group, which was formed during the last reporting period, drafted a number of scenarios and determined how the integration of modeling would occur across the research teams. They also developed a list of framing questions, which are “big-picture questions” that will be informed by the project through the use of models. The team has started to develop a workplan for developing scenarios and integrating modeling efforts using apples as a test case.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
DeFauw, S.L., R.P. Larkin, P.J. English, J.M. Halloran and A.K. Hoshide. 2012. Geospatial Evaluations of Potato Production Systems in Maine. American Journal of Potato Research 89(6): 471-488. Published online: 6Oct2012 DOI: 10.1007/s12230-012-9271-2.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Etemadnia, H., S.Goetz, Optimal Transportation Network Hub Location in Food Systems , Agricultural & Applied Economics Associations (AAEA) 2012 Annual meeting, Seattle, Washington, August 12-14, 2012. (poster)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Etemadnia, H., S. Goetz, and P. Canning, "Optimal Wholesale Facilities Location within the Fruit and Vegetables Supply Chain", Southern Regional Science Association Annual Meeting, Arlington, VA, pp.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Clancy, Kate, Update and Overview of the EFNSE Project, Presentation at USDA KYF2 Briefing, Washington, DC, November 27, 2012
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Clancy, Kate, The EFNSE GFS Project, Presentation at the PD meeting, Washington, DC, March 26, 2012.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Bonanno, A., L. Chenarides, H. Etemadnia and S. J. Goetz. Limited Food Access as an Equilibrium Outcome: Some Theory and an Empirical Test Presented at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut. September 28th, 2012 and at the AESE/M.E. John Seminar Series, Penn State University, October, 5th 2012
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Bonanno, A., L. Chenarides, and S. J. Goetz. Food Deserts as Equilibrium Outcomes: An Empirical Analysis Selected paper for the AAEA/EAAE conference on Food Environment: The Effects of Context on Food Choice. Tufts University, Boston, MA, May 3031, 2012.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Griffin, Tim. Regional Food Systems in the NE United States: Evaluating the Status, Possibilities and Relationship to Food Security. Invited seminar at University of Georgia, Athens GA. (April 21, 2013).
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Resop, J.P., D.H. Fleisher, Q. Wang, D.J. Timlin, and V.R.Reddy. 2012. Combining explanatory crop models with geospatial data for regional analyses of crop yield using field-scale modeling units. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 89: 51-61
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Resop, J.P., D.H. Fleisher, D.J. Timlin, and V.R. Reddy. 2012. Sensitivity analysis of an explanatory crop model at the regional scale using geospatial data. Poster presentation at the USDA-ARS Beltsville Agricultural Research Center Poster Day, April 19, 2012
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Progress 03/01/11 to 02/28/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The AFRI project has made good progress, with presentations made at four events, and a recent meeting of the entire project team in Albany, NY in conjunction with the NESAWG annual meeting. Consumption Team Progress: Specific items for the Conventional and the Healthy Market Baskets were chosen. Quarterly price data for some items in the market basket were acquired. Collaboration points with the DIST group were identified for work in the stores. Review of food environmental survey tools and development of the project survey tool is underway, and the first draft of the intercept consumer survey has been completed. A focus group interview guide has been developed and pilot-tested. Distribution Team: The MITERS input-output flow database has been updated with 2007 data and linked to NHANES. Review of supply chain survey instruments and development of the retail survey protocol is progressing. Links with the PROD group for data collection and supply chain modeling have been identified. Modification of a basic dairy transshipment model and apple supply chain model has begun. Production Team: The estimation of the current production capacity of the food system in the Northeast U.S. is nearly complete. This work was expanded to include all farm output, and marine fisheries, and will be compared to consumption at the state and regional levels. Spatial databases were developed for soil data, land-use classes, NASS yield statistics, and climate data for Maine, as a representative state in the region. Regional geodatabases for New England were developed for the rapid assessment of landcover and soils, and to track farmland availability on a near-decadal time-step. Outreach Team: Important first steps have been taken to develop the eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) in Local and Regional Food Systems. Partners have been identified and contacted at the University of Wisconsin as well as The Ohio State University. A document describing the various collaborators at each of the sites was compiled and work is underway on the project's public website. The first newsletter was prepared and mailed out and the first annual workshop describing the project was offered at the NESAWG conference in November. Already the project has been highlighted at four different regional and national conferences. Education Team: At Tufts four students were recruited to assist with data collection and analysis for a baseline assessment of regional food production in the Northeast. At Delaware State Nutrition and Dietetics students have been introduced to the project and invited to participate. At Penn State two Ph.D. students have already started on the project. Other: Progress on the site selection: For most of our sites we have identified the specific stores and neighborhood leaders to work with us. At two sites this work is in progress. Presentations made: 1. NESAWG audience, Albany, NY (Goetz, Clancy, Griffen, Ruhf, Palmer, Peters) 2. Funders group in Philadelphia, PA (Goetz, Hinrichs) 3. Northeast Association of State Departments of Agriculture (Griffin) 4. Agriculture Food and Human Values Society Annual Meeting in Missoula, MT by K. Clancy PARTICIPANTS: Collaborators on this project include personnel from 12 northeast partner institutions and cover 11 core disciplines: Dr. Stephan Goetz (PD), Professor of Agricultural and Regional Economics and Director, the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, Penn State University Kate Alie, West Virginia State University Cooperative Extension Dr. Linda Berlin, Extension Assistant Professor and Director, Nutrition & Food Sciences, University of Vermont Dr. Alessandro Bonanno, Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics, Penn State University Dr. Patrick Canning, Economist, USDA-ERS, Washington, DC Dr. Kate Clancy, Food Systems Consultant and Visiting Scholar Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Michael Conard, Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia University Cornell Cooperative Extension Office-Onondaga County Dr. Deno De Cantis, Director of the Penn State Urban Extension Center in Pittsburgh Dr. Dave Fleisher, Agricultural Engineer, USDA-ARS Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory, Beltsville, MD Dr. Oliver Gao, Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Economics & Management, Cornell University Dr. Carol Giesecke, Family and Consumer Science Department, College of Agriculture and Related Sciences, Director of Didactic Program in Dietetics, Delaware State University Dr. Miguel Gomez, Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Economics & Management, Cornell University Dr. Timothy Griffin, Director, Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, Tufts University Dr. Clare Hinrichs, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State University Dr. Robert Larkin, Research Leader and Supervisory Soil Scientist, USDA-ARS New England Plant, Soil & Water Laboratory, Orono, ME Anne Palmer, Program Director, Eating for the Future, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Dr. Chris Peters, Assistant Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Agriculture, Food, and Environment Program Kathryn Ruhf, Coordinator of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG). Advisory Council: Robert King, Professor, Univ. of Minnesota Toni Liquori, NYC School Food FOCUS David Marvel, President, Fruit and Vegetable Growers Assoc. of DE Joyce Smith, Operation Reachout Southwest, Baltimore Ben Walsh, Deputy Commissioner, Neighborhood and Business Development, Syracuse Evaluation plan developer: Ed Wilson, The Headwaters Group TARGET AUDIENCES: These include store owners, consumers, educators and researchers as well as policy makers at the federal, state and local levels. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
To date (after 8 months), the primary outcome of the project has been the development of an intensified working relationship among the partners of this complex project, and close coordination across each of the project objectives. From the Evaluation: The teams are working remarkably well together: "The team leaders are doing an exceptional job." "I think [our team] has been really effective... It's a really good group of people. I can't think of anything I'd do to change it." Progress is slower than expected at the Site-level: "I have a concern about the slowness by which we're identifying the stores and the neighborhoods." "We didn't quite anticipate the challenge of getting some of the partners on ground." This is an extremely complex project: "The biggest issue-because the project is so complicated-is ensuring that things stay on task... Keeping things together will be a challenge." "Coordination has been more involved than anticipated-both internal and with outside stakeholders." The participants have shown confidence in the project's leadership: "It's amazing how [Goetz] has been able to manage such a complex project." "[Clancy] is pivotal in terms of putting the pieces together." "This has been the best organized and managed interdisciplinary project I've ever worked on."
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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