Avsnitt
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Food, nature and people have always been MaryEllen’s passions, and her sustainable food
systems work seeks the flourishing of all three. Co-founding a community garden over ten years ago opened her to synergies in natural systems and ways humans could cooperate with them. She recently started a small urban farm in Indianapolis with her husband that provides endless opportunities to support an ecological system where organisms collaborate. MaryEllen believes that humans can join that elegant dance to create a just, thriving food system.
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Focused on the Olympic Peninsula bioregion in Washington State, this project addresses limited local food procurement, affordable food access and limited non-direct marketing opportunities for small and mid-sized producers by developing a participatory value chain coordination model. She creates a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-oriented data gathering and visualization tool for rural food systems that addresses a multitude of social, logistical, and economic challenges faced by regional food systems in rural settings.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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For her Capstone, Claire designed learning modules focused on changing health outcomes for vulnerable adult populations through gardening. Through on-farm experiential learning, the workshop offers opportunities to access emotional, physical, mental and social well-being. This capstone project uses community-engaged research methods to inform business operating model recommendations for The Greenhouse Project (TGP), a historic 2.2-acre agricultural site in San Francisco. The project is envisioned as a model urban agriculture initiative, a collaborative and visionary hub for food production, education, connection, and environmental stewardship, and a site for broader intersections between various food systems actors, researchers, and policymakers. As a final project in the MSFS/MBA degree program, Claire Turner worked closely with organizers of the initiative to create a comprehensive feasibility study highlighting multiple models for how The Greenhouse Project can best achieve its social and environmental commitments while maintaining financial solvency. Her analysis and recommendations seek to demonstrate that an urban farm can be profitable, equity-focused, and sustainable by integrating social and environmental values into the business planning process.
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The “Cooking Together Cookbook” is a response to child nutrition challenges that supports an environment where children and parents can learn and enjoy cooking activities together with the goal of improving child/parent relationships, child mental health, and nutrition. Casey McManus created the cookbook as her Capstone project by first examining existing literature for the obstacles that children face in accessing nutritional food. Inspired by the scholarship, she created 16 seasonally inspired recipes and activities that emphasize sensory learning and food literacy components to engage children and their families in fun ways to celebrate nutritious and inspired collaborative cooking.
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Indigenous people around the world are initiating food sovereignty movements to regain control of their food systems. The globalized industrial food system has increased the disconnection from traditional foodways and knowledge and has increased the risks of diet-related diseases. Kit Laux examines the food sovereignty movement as one that can build resiliency and reconnect people to nutritious and culturally appropriate food. As a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community on the L’Anse Indian Reservation in Michigan, she describes for her Capstone how Native American tribes throughout the nation are implementing food sovereignty initiatives to increase control of their food systems linking to culture, health, and economic development. Her project’s goal is to increase visibility and awareness of food sovereignty topics specific to her bioregion by developing a website that will share information and provide links to resources that support regaining control of a more traditional food system. Her research points to social media as a proven and effective tool to distribute information widely and quickly throughout her target community. The website she created is drawing on a wide variety of marketing metrics and data analytics to create impact indicators as a strategy for success.
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One of the impacts of COVID-19 was a dramatic rise in unemployment, and with that, increases in food insecurity experienced by those in Bianca Garcia’s hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. Noting how Three Square, Southern Nevada’s only food bank, managed to pivot effectively to cope with the increased need, Bianca became interested in what enabled the organization to respond quickly and efficiently. For her Capstone, she provides a case study of Three Square and its response to rapid changes in the need to provide food to the region. She compares the Three Square model to three other organizations doing similar work on various scales and examines the social network of Three Square to provide analysis and recommendations on best practices.
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For consumers interested in making ethical choices regarding meat consumption, Karlee Shields wrote a handbook with the goal to re-connect people to the food they eat as a tool to shift animal production toward more environmentally restorative and cruelty-free practices.
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Trigger Warning: Content may trigger those with sensitivities to issues related to disordered eating and body image.
Zephyr Schott brings forward a book proposal as their Capstone project. The book is an examination of the ways the State acts on bodies and eating modalities through control of food systems and concomitant systems of oppression. Through auto-ethnography and examination of history, Zephyr explores issues related to body and food autonomy, taking a critical view of food systems as they contribute to white supremacy, colonization, fatphobia, ableism, speciesism, and (cis)sexism. The book addresses systems of confinement and oppression associated with “treatment” of disordered eating, challenging the pathologization of the perceptions and dynamics of food and embodiment. -
Prescott College MS in Sustainable Food Systems student Rachel Wilson examines the Massachusetts Commonwealth Quality Program (CQP) as a case study for a successful state-led certification program that is accepted by all produce buyers in the state with reduced compliance obstacles for farmers. She created an original survey and provides an analysis of interview results from produce growers, buyers, and key stakeholders in Missouri and Illinois with the recommendation that the CQP model be adopted in the St. Louis region and other U.S. states to support the market inclusion for more local produce growers.
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For the coal miners of Appalachia, climate change has brought about economic hardship as jobs are being lost to the necessary growth in the renewable energy sector. August Stubler examines through a literature review and case study analysis, the movement toward food-based economic revitalization. Specifically focused on the introduction of apiary work in hard-hit communities as an economic development strategy, August analyzes one promising model and analyzes the impact of agricultural-based vocational training to transition former coal miners and their families toward more sustainable and resilient livelihoods.
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Julia Soondar took on the challenge of examining the tension between the critical contributions Florida’s agricultural land offers to the state’s food system, the environment, the economy, and various stakeholders, and concerns over the social, environmental, and economic consequences of the trend to convert agricultural land for private development. Her Capstone explores the feasibility of a new state-level policy that would preserve Florida’s agricultural lands through a combination of tax relief, agricultural districting, leasing programs and the creation of a farmer network. The objective with this food policy project is to strengthen resilience in the Florida agricultural sector through institutional architecture at the state level.
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Our first guest of Season 4 is Carly Dureiko who was born, raised, and continues to work in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended Kent State University for her bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics and through a dietetic internship program post-graduation, became a registered dietitian. She currently works in nephrology as a clinical dietitian.
Carly shares that her two passions in life have always been for community nutrition and sustainability, which is why she was attracted to the Master of Science degree program in Sustainable Food Systems at Prescott College.
In this episode, Carly discusses an innovative approach to improving nutrition at community food access sights—growing microgreens. Carly’s Capstone advisor, Sharon Palmer, MSFS faculty –otherwise known to the world as the Plant-Based Dietician, joins us for the conversation.
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Robbi Mixon has spent the last decade working with producers in Homer, running the local farmers market, and launching the Alaska Food Hub. She joined the Alaska Food Policy Governing Board three years ago, hoping to represent the interests of farmers and fishers on the Kenai Peninsula. In January 2020, she accepted the role of first-ever AFPC Executive Director.
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Jespen Nyblom brings the knowledge of Horticulture, Sustainability, and Sustainable Food Systems to his work serving foster youth programs in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Working with Extension programs in his region, he developed a Capstone project that advocates centering food systems in diverse approaches created to support youth aging out of the system.
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With many years of experience working in international development, Kelley Bishop’s Capstone offers new perspectives on this work and details why he believes food system development as a leverage point strategy can work holistically to reduce poverty, address health, nutrition, human rights, animal welfare, the environment, food safety, and cultural preservation.
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Combining her experience with nutrition and oncology with her food systems volunteer work in India, for her Capstone, Andrea Rossi partnered with a small international development organization addressing the nutritional needs of school-age children in Bangladesh’s river island communities. She discusses her project and hopes for organizational-led research to become a needed bridge between the applied and the academic.
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Guest Bio: Laurel Balog
Laurel Balog became interested in agrobiodiversity and seed sovereignty through her undergraduate studies in ecology and natural resource management. Through her graduate studies at Prescott College and in her work managing St. Lawrence University’s 100-acre Living Laboratory, understanding the significance of saved seeds in creating resilient agricultural systems became an area of research and focus. In this episode, Laurel shares her project which assesses seed saving practices in her home region of St. Lawrence County, New York. -
For his Capstone, Dave Kuder created a guide for farmers who are interested in direct marketing. In addition, he developed a plan for a specific business that would work with farmers to create the promotional and educational materials they need. The business is called True Abundance Marketing. In this, Dave envisions a direct-to-consumer marketing service that will help farmers become more economically sustainable by creating materials that will influence consumer behaviors, appealing to the desire folks have to preserve local ownership, take care of the environment and improve their own health through the purchase of fresh and nutritious locally produced food.
- Visa fler
