The COVID-19 pandemic's global impact presents an opportunity to assess the resilience of Michigan farmers' markets and their integration into broader goals of food sovereignty. In response to fluctuating public health guidelines and the inherent ambiguity, managers put new policies into effect to guarantee a secure shopping environment and broaden food availability. selleck inhibitor Farmers markets saw a dramatic rise in sales, as consumers preferred safer outdoor shopping options to purchase local products and foods lacking in grocery stores, vendors reporting exceptional success, but the sustainability of this trend is yet unknown. Our findings, stemming from semi-structured interviews with market managers and vendors, and survey data from customers between 2020 and 2021, point towards a lack of compelling evidence that consumer habits at farmers markets will retain the intensity exhibited during 2020 and 2021, despite the widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, the factors attracting consumers to farmers' markets do not align with market objectives for enhanced food self-determination; higher sales figures alone are not a sufficient driving force for this goal. The role of markets in the food sovereignty movement is examined in relation to their ability to contribute to broader sustainability goals or to substitute for capitalist and industrial agricultural practices.

Due to its global prominence in agricultural production, its multifaceted system of food recovery organizations, and its rigorous environmental and public health standards, California serves as a pivotal location for examining produce recovery strategies and their policy effects. This research sought to gain a deeper understanding of the current produce recovery system, identifying major challenges and opportunities through a series of focus groups with gleaning organizations and emergency food operations (food banks and pantries). Both gleaning and emergency food operations brought attention to the operational and systematic obstacles that stood in the way of recovery. Operational challenges, encompassing the absence of proper infrastructure and inadequate logistical support, were uniformly encountered across groups and were unequivocally correlated with a shortage of funding for these organizations. The systemic hurdles presented by food safety regulations and initiatives to curtail food waste similarly affected both gleaning and emergency food assistance organizations. Significantly, the effects varied depending on the stakeholder group and how the regulations impacted them. Participants called for improved coordination between and within food recovery networks, and for a more transparent and collaborative approach from regulators, to better understand the specific operational challenges faced by food recovery organizations. The focus group's observations on how emergency food aid and food recovery are currently part of the food system also underscored that lasting efforts to reduce food insecurity and food waste require an extensive restructuring of the food system itself.

The health of agricultural entrepreneurs and laborers has significant repercussions for farming operations, farming families, and the rural communities that derive substantial social and economic benefits from agriculture. Food insecurity affects rural residents and farm laborers disproportionately, but the challenges encountered by farm owners and the intertwined issues of farm owners and farmworkers with regard to food security deserve further investigation. The mutual influence of farm owners' and farmworkers' lived experiences needs further examination, a point stressed by researchers and public health practitioners who underscore the significance of policies that respect the realities of farm life. Qualitative interviews, in-depth, were conducted with 13 Oregon farm owners and 18 farmworkers. Interview data was analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. Data underwent a three-phased coding process, aiming to uncover salient core characteristics of food insecurity. Evaluated food security scores, derived from validated quantitative measures, sometimes failed to accurately reflect the meanings and interpretations of food insecurity held by farm owners and farmworkers. These measurements indicated that 17 individuals experienced high food security, 3 experienced marginal food security, and 11 experienced low food security; however, the narratives pointed to a more substantial frequency. Seasonal food shortages, resource limitations, extended working schedules, restricted access to food assistance, and a tendency to downplay hardship were crucial characteristics used to categorize the experiences related to food insecurity. These exceptional features demand policies and programs that are responsive and effective in advancing the health and prosperity of farm-based livelihoods, whose activities directly impact consumer health and well-being. A critical need exists for future studies examining the relationships between the core indicators of food insecurity from this investigation and the interpretations of food insecurity, hunger, and nourishment held by farm owners and farmworkers.

Inclusive environments are crucial for the flourishing of scholarship, where open discussions and productive feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. A significant number of researchers, nonetheless, encounter barriers to entering these settings, and most standard academic gatherings fall short of their commitments to furnish these researchers with them. In this Field Report, we detail our strategies for fostering a thriving intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). The global pandemic did not hinder STSFAN's prosperity; instead, it was strengthened by insights from 21 network members. With hope, we believe that these understandings will spur others to establish their intellectual communities, settings that offer the support needed to deepen their academic work and strengthen their intellectual relationships.

While the integration of sensors, drones, robots, and apps into agricultural and food systems is garnering increasing attention, social media, a globally ubiquitous digital tool in rural areas, has unfortunately been overlooked. This article posits, based on an examination of farming groups on Myanmar Facebook, that social media becomes appropriated agritech, a common technology interwoven into existing economic and social exchange systems, generating a space for agrarian innovation. sandwich type immunosensor I investigate how farmers, traders, agronomists, and agricultural enterprises utilize social media to foster agrarian commerce and disseminate agricultural knowledge, through an examination of an original archive of frequently-shared agricultural posts from Myanmar-language Facebook pages and groups. Biogenic Mn oxides Farmers' use of Facebook for information exchange about markets and planting is interwoven with their participation in interactions influenced by existing social, political, and economic frameworks. From a broader perspective, my analysis leverages insights from STS and postcolonial computing to challenge the presumption of digital technology's comprehensive power, demonstrating social media's importance to agriculture and prompting further research on the nuanced, sometimes conflicting relationships between smallholder farmers and major technology companies.

Amidst a surge of investment, innovation, and public interest in agri-food biotechnologies in the United States, calls for open and inclusive dialogue on the subject are frequently voiced by both supporters and critics. These discursive engagements potentially stand to gain from the contributions of social scientists, though the legacy of the protracted genetically modified (GM) food debate compels reflection on the most effective strategies for establishing the discussion's norms. Promoting a more constructive dialogue surrounding agri-food biotechnology requires agri-food scholars to synthesize key insights from science communication and science and technology studies (STS) and concurrently counteract any inherent weaknesses within these fields. Pragmatic value is undeniable in collaborative and translational science communication's public outreach efforts benefiting scientists across academic, governmental, and private sectors; however, this approach has often become entrenched in a deficit model approach, failing to sufficiently examine the complexities of public values and corporate influence. The critical lens of STS has illuminated the requirement for multi-stakeholder power-sharing and the fusion of various knowledge systems in public participation, however, it has been notably deficient in confronting the widespread dissemination of misinformation surrounding movements against genetically modified foods and other agri-food biotechnologies. Ultimately, a more comprehensive understanding of agri-food biotechnology demands both a strong foundation in scientific literacy and a deep engagement with the social studies of science. In its concluding remarks, the paper emphasizes the capacity of social scientists, mindful of the structure, content, and presentation style of public engagement with agri-food biotechnology debates, to play a vital and engaging role across different academic, institutional, community-level, and mediated environments.

The U.S. agri-food system has experienced widespread ramifications from the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing numerous significant problems to light. US seed systems, which form the basis of food production, suffered significant disruption from panic-buying and enhanced safety measures in seed fulfillment facilities, leaving the commercial sector unable to meet the considerable increase in seed demand, particularly among non-commercial growers. Scholars of prominence, in response, have underscored the significance of sustaining both formal (commercial) and informal (farmer- and gardener-managed) seed systems to aid growers thoroughly across multiple contexts. Nevertheless, a limited emphasis on non-commercial seed systems in the United States, coupled with a lack of widespread agreement on the characteristics of a resilient seed system, compels an initial investigation into the inherent strengths and vulnerabilities of existing seed systems.