Technological Transitions in the US Local Food System in Response to Covid-19

In response to production shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of social distancing on traditional distribution channels (e.g., on-farm markets, CSA pickups, farmers’ markets), local farmers and consumers are switching to digital technologies to ensure that they can grow, buy, and sell food from a distance. Decisions about who takes which risks to grow, distribute, or consume food depend on the ways that growers and distributors manage farm data. As small farmers and local food distributors switch en masse to replace face-to-face networking with digital tracking systems, the ways that they manage data form an invisible infrastructure governing risk, food access, and the consolidation of power within these networks. In this project, we interview local farmers, food distributors, and digital tool developers, recording their experiences of this transition alongside de-identified screenshots and workflows of the tools they use to manage and organize data. These data include worker health, supply orders, food access, and farm productivity, presenting ethical and logistical problems for farmers and local food supporters. Just access to food and work requires urgent research to understand the technology-mediated systems that connect farms and eaters. By centering the collection and interpretation of data, this project analyzes how sociocultural biases in data management inform the decision-making that will shape the post-coronavirus rural economy. To better understand how growers and food distributors are managing the challenges of a forced, rapid transition to online platforms, we have convened a research team including anthropologists, computer scientists, agricultural economists, and agricultural engineers. This project is funded by the Social Science Research Council.

Publications related to this research:

• Flachs, Andrew, Ankita Raturi, Megan Low, Valerie Miller, Juliet Norton, Celeste Redmond, and Haley Thomas. 2024. “Digital tools for local farmers: Thinking with spreadsheets in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Culture, Agriculture, Food, and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12316..

Adolescent Substance Use: Indiana Community Needs and Education through Extension

Youth who engage in heavy substance use during adolescence are at high risk for continued use, addiction, and mental health problems throughout their lives. The growth in prescription drug misuse and the related trend in heroin use has exacerbated this problem in Indiana and surrounding states. Understanding adolescent substance use in Indiana and the needs of Indiana residents to ameliorate adolescent substance use is important to more effectively educate Indiana residents, especially parents, and prevent adolescent substance use problems. This AgSEED proposal by Dr. Kristine Marceau, a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Human Development and Family Studies department, and a team of faculty with quantitative, qualitative, and community-based research expertise from several departments in the Colleges of Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, and Extension, will address the major contemporary problem of adolescent substance use in Indiana. Our overarching goal is to facilitate informed decision-making to improve the well-being of Indiana youth and their families. We propose a three-arm Applied Research study, including 1) information gathering, 2) an outreach component: education through Extension, and 3) qualitative community-based participatory research aimed at understanding the prevalence of adolescence substance use and needs of Indiana residents surrounding adolescent substance use prevention and resources. At the culmination of this project, we will have the following products: publications and white papers disseminating our findings, pilot data for a planned R21 or R34 to be submitted to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and a deliverable informational session for families that can be continued by Extension.  This project is funded by the Purdue University Agricultural Science and Extension for Economic Development (AgSEED) Grant.

Publications related to this research:

• Nair, Nayantara, Alishia Elliott, Sarah Arnold, Andrew Flachs, Barbara Beaulieu & Kristine Marceau. 2022. “Adolescent substance use: Findings from a state-wide pilot parent education program.” BMC Public Health, 22(1):557. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12899-2

Urban Gardens and Alternative Food Spaces in Northeastern Ohio

Motivated by a lifelong interest in gardening and alternative food production, this project investigated the role of community and urban gardens as alternative food spaces in Northeastern Ohio.  While many community members used these spaces to supplement their household food security in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, these gardens also filled a crucial role as social spaces where people could interact in a safe and natural space.  This project was funded by the McNair Fellowship/Oberlin College Research Fellowship.

Publications related to this research:

• Flachs, Andrew.  2013 “Gardening as Ethnographic Research – Volunteering as a Means for Community Access.”  Journal of Ecological Anthropology, 16(1):97-103

• Flachs, Andrew.  2010 “Food For Thought: The Social Impact of Community Gardens in the Greater Cleveland Area.” Electronic Green Journal, 30(1):1-9.

Human Environmental Relationships in the Lower Illinois River Valley

This ongoing project combines approaches from historical ecology and political ecology to ask how people have created sustainable agricultural systems in a single place over the span of 2,000 years given natural and political constraints.  Bringing together approaches from archaeology, history, ecology, and anthropology, this project sees the landscape as a palimpsest on which story of environmental management is continually written.  This project is funded in part through the Library of Congress Blanton Owen Award, the Lynne Cooper Harvey Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) project: Long-term Perspectives on Human-River Dynamics at the Confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers: Interdisciplinary Research for Students in Ecology and Archeology (Grant #1460787) (Buikstra PI).

Publications related to this project:

• Flachs, Andrew and Matthew Abel. 2018. “An Emerging Geography of the Agrarian Question:  Spatial Analysis as a tool for Identifying the New American Agrarianism.”  Rural Sociology, published online October 3, 2018.