Using Networks To Build Collaborative & Equitable Food Systems

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Local food systems are widely regarded as go-to examples for fostering rural-urban and farmer-consumer connections, but they require significant investments in stakeholder networks and the institutional infrastructure necessary to sustain and expand them.

In our latest research brief, Using Networks to Build Collaborative and Equitable Food Systems, authors Rich Pirog and Marcus A. Coleman focus on local food systems as vehicles for collaboration and racial equity among multiple stakeholders and networks.

They highlight examples of statewide, regional, and national initiatives to illustrate the power of networks to foster deeper levels of collaboration and reciprocity. They also explore the vital roles of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Cooperative Extension.

Thrive Rural Framework Connection: This brief examines some of the driving forces and conditions – building blocks – that determine Equitable Aims and Design, specifically achieving balanced development outcomes, valued rural stewardship, and rural stakeholder equity.

Local and regional food systems have the potential to transform engrained inequitable and unsustainable practices in agriculture and food production into equitable and sustainable stewardship of natural resources and fair worker and consumer policies and practices.

The Emergence of Local Food as an Economic Strategy for Farmers

In 2020 there were approximately 2 million US farms,¹ down from 6.8 million farms in 1935. Mid-sized and small farms declined the most, as a result of falling commodity prices, razor-thin profit margins, and increased dominance of global supply chains in the marketplace.

Common survival strategies for small and mid-sized farmers in the 1980s included selling more differentiated food products directly to consumers or grouping together to sell those products through specialty retailers and food co-ops.² ³ These strategies converged with increasing interest by consumers to know more about the farmers who produced their food and where it was grown.⁴

With the growth of local food in the marketplace came a corresponding increase in local food programs coordinated by non-profit organizations, state agencies, and Cooperative Extension at Land Grant Universities. Grant-awarding foundations and the US Department of Agriculture began to support the local food movement, while universities offered courses and degree programs focused on food systems. Food systems comprise the players and interactions along the food supply chain, from input supply and production of foods to transportation, processing, retailing, wholesaling, and preparation of foods, to consumption and eventual disposal/recycling.

Evolution of Local Food to Help Ensure Food Security, Health, and Equity Goals

Lower-income families in urban and rural communities also were affected by the loss of smaller farms and food businesses and by consolidation in the food retail industry. Less profitable supermarkets in these communities closed, creating areas where residents could not easily access fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Lack of healthy food access is a significant contributor to poor health and chronic disease.⁵ Policies that led to disparities in housing, education, and employment opportunities made the loss of food retail especially severe in lower-income communities of color.⁶

As more on-the-ground local food system initiatives yielded important insights, they began to play a key part in programs to ensure food security goals.⁷ Increasing access to healthy local or regionally produced food has been documented as a policy strategy to increase food security in urban and rural communities.⁸ In the past ten years, the number of articles shining a light on the structural racism and misogyny present in the US food system has increased dramatically.⁹ A growing number of non- and for-profit organizations and foundations working in food systems have developed ambitious goals to build a more just and equitable food system for all.

Racial Equity in the Food System

Food systems comprise interrelated processes that include various social, political, environmental, economic, and health interactions and outcomes, impacting diverse sets of individuals, businesses, and communities. Through a racial equity lens, these processes must proactively account for historically socially disadvantaged and marginalized communities. Fostering racial equity in the food system requires stakeholders to work collaboratively in developing practical strategies and solutions for inclusive and equitable food systems. These methods must be economically and socially beneficial and accommodating, and must provide opportunities for quality and nutritious food to be accessible, available, affordable, and acceptable to diverse communities.

Racial equity has long been a topic of discussion related to agriculture and food systems development. The lack of racial equity in agriculture and the food system has been a source of stress for many socially disadvantaged and marginalized communities that have often been recipients of harmful agriculture and food system outcomes. This source of stress can, in many ways, be linked directly to the historical connection between agriculture and Black and African Americans in rural communities.

While there are positive characteristics associated with agriculture’s role in American society, the negative connotations often make it challenging to attract younger members of socially disadvantaged and marginalized communities to it as a professional field. Agriculture is historically recognized as an arena in which many minorities, particularly Black and African Americans, performed manual farm labor from slavery until the industrial age provided opportunities for employment.¹⁰ This historical perspective, in many ways, has left a legacy of socially disadvantaged and marginalized youth that perceive agriculture as an occupation involving manual labor with low pay and low prestige.¹¹

One of the biggest challenges facing agriculture and food system development is recruiting and retaining historically socially disadvantaged and marginalized students.¹² These students, particularly Black and African Americans, remain underrepresented in undergraduate agriculture and food system-based programs across the Land-Grant University (LGU) system when compared to other academic programs. This gap has longer-term impacts on the food system workforce and the diversity of people, thoughts, and ideas working to create inclusive and equitable solutions.

While there are historical challenges to addressing issues of racial equity across agriculture and the food system, opportunities exist to develop inclusive and equitable strategies to address the problems now and in the future. Practically addressing these issues requires valuing Indigenous approaches to food equity and engaging individuals with lived experiences in food systems. Agriculture and food systems development provide an intriguing opportunity for historically socially disadvantaged and marginalized populations. Specifically, it allows individuals to study and/or work in a field with the necessary skill set to return to their respective communities and be catalysts for sustainable food systems change.

While these food systems opportunities exist, they come with challenges. The historical connection to agriculture is one, but another comes from within the higher education system with its intra-university competition between agriculture and other academic programs for attracting socially disadvantaged and marginalized populations. Due to limited educational and employment opportunities in rural areas, high-achieving individuals tend to leave home to pursue opportunities in more economically developed areas.¹³ Overcoming these challenges will require agriculture and food system stakeholders to understand the nature of the interconnectedness of food systems players and their relationship to the various social, political, environmental, economic, and health outcomes impacting a diverse base of individuals, businesses, and communities.

The Role of Minority Serving Institutions in Fostering Racial Equity in the Food System

The LGU system has played a critical role in agriculture and food system development for over a century. “1862 LGUs” were established by the Land-Grant College Act of 1862 (also known as the Morrill Act of 1862) and have played a critical role in United States food systems development through agricultural research and development and stakeholder outreach. “1890 LGUs” were created by the Agricultural College Act of 1890 (also known as the Morrill Act of 1890) and provided separate institutions for African Americans as, during that time, their admission was not welcomed at 1862 LGUs.¹⁴ The third set of LGUs was established via the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act. The “1994 LGUs” gave land-grant status to Native American tribal colleges,¹⁵ which offered educational opportunities to many Native American people who otherwise would not be able to attend college.¹⁶

Today, Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), specifically 1890 and 1994 LGUs, hold a unique position related to agriculture and food systems development. They have direct access to and working relationships with socially disadvantaged and marginalized individuals, businesses, and communities and are instrumental in fostering racial equity in the food system. They serve as valuable coordinators of resources, information, and opportunities for agriculture and food systems development to individuals, businesses, and communities that have not historically benefited from these efforts. For example, their longstanding relationships with small-to-medium-sized farms in socially disadvantaged and marginalized communities are vital for equitably expanding local agribusinesses and food marketing opportunities.

Role of Food System Leadership in Fostering Racial Equity

Significant interest has grown in developing local food system strategies to foster localized community economic development by enhancing local agribusiness viability and sustainability and addressing food access gaps. Historically, much of this work was driven by the LGU system, with specific efforts in coordinating this work within state boundaries. Recently, more robust measures are attempting to facilitate this work across state boundaries in an interdisciplinary way and include a wider variety of food systems stakeholders.

As the rapidly developing food systems interests continue to emerge, more inclusive efforts are being made to foster collaborations with non-LGUs, non-profit and community organizations, local governments, and others. These collaborations aim to strengthen community capacity to create sustainable local and regional food systems effectively. This process of coordination and collaboration is the driving force behind food system leadership.

Such efforts seek to accomplish goals such as reducing duplication of work across state lines and identifying gaps in efforts and missed opportunities to respond to local and regional food system needs. This work is done across disciplinary and organizational lines and without boundaries. These spaces also welcome a diverse spectrum of people, thoughts, ideas, and outcomes.

High-Functioning Networks Are Key to Achieving Food System Goals

Networks are critical for our survival; without them, we would have difficulty finding and buying food, clothing, and other goods and services we need to live our daily lives. Although networks have been present since the dawn of civilization, they have evolved and been dramatically reconfigured by recent advances in communication technology. The internet, smartphones, and increased social media have transformed how we network.

Networks differ in their design, structure, and implementation, and their ability to influence systems change. Vandeventer and Mandell¹⁷ characterize three types:

• Cooperating networks model and explain best practices, convene problem-solving sessions, and update each other on new projects. They share and work together to document problems. They model and explain best practices for one another. Cooperating networks involve low risk but lead to little, if any, systems change.
• Coordinating networks push organizational boundaries and engage in more interdependent activities that require mutual reliance. They carefully identify and pursue advocacy priorities. Coordinating networks negotiate time and resource commitments from participating organizations. These networks involve low to moderate risk and have a better chance than cooperating networks for achieving systemic change.
• Collaborating networks pursue fundamental, long-term system creation. They have methods in place to address and resolve conflicts. People in the network strive to redefine their roles within and outside their organizations and begin to reallocate resources across the network rather than just within organizations. They may share staff across organizations. These high-trust networks have the highest level of risk but the greatest chance for systems change.

Lessons From These Six Food System Networks

All six of the network examples shared in this brief have been successful because they share leadership and decision-making power to create and maintain collaboration infrastructures that value and foster a culture of complex reciprocity. Each of these networks has allowed multiple avenues for urban and rural members to engage and benefit from the network, and to gain a better understanding of their shared challenges and collaboration opportunities, thus helping bridge the urban-rural divide.

MLFCN and MFIN’s success can also be attributed to their commitment to advancing the goals of the Michigan Good Food Charter. The complex reciprocity fostered by MFIN and MLFCN is further enriched because some stakeholders belong to other Michigan networks with strong links to MFIN and MLFCN. These cross-network connections widen the circle to influence food system change.

SERA-47, REFS, and FSLN have each fostered regional and national collaborative thinking and relationship-building. Each has brought together a range of food systems stakeholders, including but not limited to producers, universities, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and foundations. The goal of each of these entities is to develop practical strategies and solutions that assist in developing food systems that are inclusive, equitable, and welcoming of a diverse spectrum of people, thoughts, ideas, and outcomes.

Applying Food System Lessons Learned to Enhance Rural Resilience

Based on the lessons learned from these food system networks, we recommend the following actions for enhancing rural resilience through collaborative networks:

• Provide adequate financial support for a strong collaboration infrastructure. All too often projects with specific program goals are funded where partners have not yet developed a strong collaboration infrastructure. Funders must be realistic about providing adequate time and funds to build this infrastructure before expecting program results.
• Provide equitable, sustainable funding to MSIs. To further racial equity impact, funders must consider the role that MSIs play in fostering a sustainable food system and their impact on socially disadvantaged and marginalized communities. Targeted funding to MSIs, particularly 1890 and 1994 LGUs, expands their ability to provide support and resources to socially disadvantaged and marginalized communities related to food systems development.
• Create the space for shared leadership and shared power across participants, including multiple avenues for participation and multiple levels of commitment.
• Foster a culture of complex reciprocity where it is the norm for members to learn from and help one another achieve mutual goals. Rural community challenges are complex, and multiple solutions are often needed. A diverse network with a variety of expertise committed to helping each other achieve shared goals will create and arrive at better solutions than a network that lacks such a commitment.
• Build in co-learning and accountability to your network or project team. Transformative learning across organizations and individuals in a network that supports complex reciprocity will create more opportunities for collective action.
• Facilitate space where rural and urban leaders can share and address mutual challenges to help bridge the urban-rural divide. In a safe, power-sharing environment these leaders can discover and appreciate the mutual goals to develop thriving communities. This also calls for the convening of a diverse network of stakeholders to assist with the formation of relevant projects and provide objective feedback based on the best practices that are identified and those that are inclusive and equitable.
• Create or designate a stable organization to serve as a foundation that can regularly convene stakeholders to develop a long-term agenda and work collaboratively within the context of a common framework.