Lois Wright Morton

Solving the problems of iowa food deserts: Food insecurity and civic structure

Abstract  Rural regions include places where food sources are not evenly distributed, leading to areas of concentration and food deserts—places where few or no grocery stores exist. Individuals are hypothesized to depend on personal connections and the civic structure of where they live to help them solve the problem of food insecurity. We find that residents living in poor rural counties with few grocery stores and perceptions of high civic structure are significantly less likely to be food insecure. A great deal of food giving and receiving is reported, but these personal connections do not decrease the odds of being food insecure. Lower incomes and being younger increase the odds of food insecurity. Our findings suggest that investments in strengthening the social structure of rural communities along with strategies that increase incomes can help households solve the problem of food insecurity.

Rural food deserts: low-income perspectives on food access in Minnesota and Iowa.

OBJECTIVE To investigate how low-income rural residents living in food deserts access the normal food system and food safety net services within their communities, and explore how social, personal, and environment drives food access and food choice. DESIGN Seven focus groups (90 minutes each) were conducted with 2 moderators present and were audiotaped. SETTING Food deserts in rural Minnesota and Iowa. PARTICIPANTS Fifty-seven residents (Minnesota: 13 females and 8 males; Iowa: 24 females and 12 males). Most participants were white and had not completed high school or higher education. PHENOMENON OF INTEREST Food choice and food access among rural residents. ANALYSIS Transcripts were evaluated for consistency and coded for themes and subthemes. RESULTS Three dominant themes influence food access and choice and were identified as: (a) personal and household determinants of food; (b) social and cultural environment; and (c) structure of place or the external environment. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Personal, environmental, and dietary behavioral factors are all interconnected; each plays a major role in influencing dietary behavior and the resulting health outcomes in rural Minnesotans and Iowans living in food deserts. However, although personal factors impact eating behavior for rural people, it is the physical and social environments that place constraints on food access, even in civically engaged communities. Food access may be improved in communities where civic engagement is strong, and where local organizations join in providing solutions to decrease barriers of food access by increasing access to the normal and food safety net systems and by creating informal alternatives, such as community gardens and informal transportation networks, or enhancing federal programs through greater volunteer involvement.

Farmer beliefs and concerns about climate change and attitudes toward adaptation and mitigation: Evidence from Iowa

Agriculture is both vulnerable to climate change impacts and a significant source of greenhouse gases. Increasing agriculture’s resilience and reducing its contribution to climate change are societal priorities. Survey data collected from Iowa farmers are analyzed to answer the related research questions: (1) do farmers support adaptation and mitigation actions, and (2) do beliefs and concerns about climate change influence those attitudes. Results indicate that farmers who were concerned about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and attributed it to human activities had more positive attitudes toward both adaptive and mitigative management strategies. Farmers who believed that climate change is not a problem because human ingenuity will enable adaptations and who did not believe climate change is occurring or believed it is a natural phenomenon—a substantial percentage of farmers—tended not to support mitigation.

Understanding Farmer Perspectives on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation The Roles of Trust in Sources of Climate Information, Climate Change Beliefs, and Perceived Risk

Agriculture is vulnerable to climate change and a source of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Farmers face pressures to adjust agricultural systems to make them more resilient in the face of increasingly variable weather (adaptation) and reduce GHG production (mitigation). This research examines relationships between Iowa farmers’ trust in environmental or agricultural interest groups as sources of climate information, climate change beliefs, perceived climate risks to agriculture, and support for adaptation and mitigation responses. Results indicate that beliefs varied with trust, and beliefs in turn had a significant direct effect on perceived risks from climate change. Support for adaptation varied with perceived risks, while attitudes toward GHG reduction (mitigation) were associated predominantly with variation in beliefs. Most farmers were supportive of adaptation responses, but few endorsed GHG reduction, suggesting that outreach should focus on interventions that have adaptive and mitigative properties (e.g., reduced tillage, improved fertilizer management).

The Effects of the Local Food Environment and Social Support on Rural Food Insecurity

ABSTRACT Local food environments and the social relationships of people across rural communities are part of the infrastructure that supports rural quality of life. In this study, we examine the relationship between a weak food infrastructure and rural food insecurity to discover differences among rural places in the American Midwest. We find that high local food prices and an inadequate number of food stores are viewed by families as obstacles to meeting their food needs. Some households counteract the local environment by shopping outside the county, farming, or relying on informal support networks. Transportation difficulties exacerbate food acquisition problems, while institutional support provided through food programs is not always effective. Implications for involving low-income rural families in program development are provided.

The Role of Civic Structure in Achieving Performance-Based Watershed Management

Traditional solutions to solving the problem of non-point source pollution from agricultural sources have been to write and enforce regulatory rules and create top-down financial incentives to shift land use practices. What has been overlooked are the roles that social pressure and internal beliefs and knowledge play in achieving sustainable practices. In this research, a model for achieving and sustaining targeted water quality outcomes is developed. A case study is used to illustrate how the civic structure and social connections among farmers in a common watershed provide an effective strategy for creating performance-based goals that can lead to better water outcomes.

Nature Reserves as Catalysts for Landscape Change

Scientists have called repeatedly for a broader conservation agenda that emphasizes not only protected areas but also the landscapes in which those areas are embedded. We describe key advances in the science and practice of engaging private landowners in biodiversity conservation and propose a conceptual model for integrating conservation management on reserves and privately owned lands. The overall goal of our model is to blur the distinction between land management on reserves and the surrounding landscapes in a way that fosters widespread implementation of conservation practices. Reserves assume a new role as natural laboratories where alternative land-use practices, designed to achieve conservation objectives, can be explored. We articulate the details of the model using a case study from the North American tallgrass prairie ecoregion.

Perceptions of landowners concerning conservation, grazing, fire, and eastern redcedar management in tallgrass prairie.

Abstract Successful prairie restoration will depend in part on convincing private landowners with agricultural and recreational use goals to implement appropriate rangeland management practices, such as prescribed burning and cattle grazing, to control invasive species and encroachment of woody plants. However, landowners have been slow to adopt appropriate practices in the US Midwest. The purpose of this study was to explore attitudes and behaviors of private landowners toward prescribed burning and moderate stocking as rangeland management tools. A survey was mailed to 193 landowners (response rate 51%) in the Grand River Grasslands region of southern Iowa and northern Missouri. While 68% of landowners viewed grazing as a legitimate land management tool, only half of landowners thought of fire as a legitimate tool. Over 75% of respondents believed that the increase in eastern redcedar and other trees in grasslands was a problem, with 44% considering it a major problem. Although 84% of landowners said that they had taken action to control eastern redcedar, only 25% had participated in a prescribed burn. Income from agriculture and recreational goals were negatively and significantly correlated (−0.252, P  =  0.035). While holding recreational goals constant in the analysis, landowners reporting income from agriculture goals as very or extremely important were negatively and significantly associated with reporting environment and grassland factors as very or extremely important. Adoption of prescribed burning by private landowners might be more widespread if proponents focus on the effectiveness of fire for controlling eastern redcedar, which is viewed as a problem by most landowners in the region. Intervention efforts must include landowners with different goals as part of the promotion and educational process.

Grocery Store Acess Patterns in Rural Food Deserts

Many small rural towns have lost local grocery stores to larger, more centralized towns. As a result they become food deserts, places with no or few proximate food stores. This study examines differences among rural food desert residents and their access to grocery store patterns. We find that households in two rural lowa counties regularly shop two grocery stores weekly and travel about 18 minutes each way. While most residents of these counties use their own vehicle to obtain food, older persons and those with limited incomes are more likely to be dependent on family, friends, neighbors and others. Sixteen percent of open country compared to 11 percent of rural town residents regularly shop for food out-of-county at supercenters, discount and wholesale food stores. An increasingly rural aging population suggests lower mobility, isolation, and future access to food store concerns as retail food consolidation continues. Policy makers need to examine rural transportation systems and develop an infra-structure that links elderly and low-income individuals to retail food sources on a regular basis.

People, place, behavior, and context: A research agenda for expanding our understanding of what motivates farmers' conservation behaviors

Social scientists have explored why farmers engage in conservation activities for a number of decades, yet there is still a large degree of unexplained variation and a lack of understanding about the factors that contribute to, or inhibit, farmer conservation. Our goal with this article is to outline an agenda for future social science research exploring conservation behaviors in agricultural systems. We believe that greater reflection on what avenues need further exploration will lead to improved scientific understanding and ultimately greater uptake in conservation by farmers. Environmentally relevant farmer behaviors, often conceptualized as best management practices (BMPs) or conservation practices, are complex and context specific, making the adoption or use of these practices difficult to measure or predict. Additionally, farmers are a highly diverse group with differing resource endowments and exposures to risk; production needs, tenure arrangements, and ownership goals; environmental motives; personalities; proclivities for engaging in government conservation programs; and social networks. Subsequently, as indicated by earlier reviews of this literature, there are few variables that consistently explain adoption decisions. In addition to high variability in determinants of behavior, physical and temporal variation in the characteristics of the practices themselves complicate research efforts. Farm and farmer-level factors are not…