How do residents perceive local food system activity? Perspectives of system performance and awareness using the local food vitality survey

ABSTRACT

Local food systems are complex sets of relationships between farmers, residents, market venues, intermediating institutions, social values, and agricultural landscapes. They are also, by definition, locally unique. How might advocates of local food systems (LFSs) evaluate the complicated expectations, hopes, and perceptions of those who reside within these systems? In this manuscript, we demonstrate a generalizable survey approach that involves collecting residential perspectives to understand food system performance. We use survey responses from 13 diversely sized and structured communities in the Southeastern United States to understand residents’ 1) awareness of and 2) performance evaluations for 21 different aspects of their local food systems. We use probit and ordered probit models, respectively, to conceptualize how different place-based demographic and geographic characteristics impact these perceptions. By bringing consumer perspectives into view, LFS development personnel and other stakeholders may better understand where their residents place value within their unique systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Local food systems
• local food metrics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Table 1 has a breakdown of paper versus online responses for each community.

2. Census details on gender not shown, though it is generally near 50/50 for each community.

3. Metro areas with more than 1,000,000 individuals are classified with a 1. Metro areas with 250,000 to 1,000,000 individuals are classified with a 2. Metro areas below this threshold receive a 3. Non-metro counties are described by proximity to metro areas and population size with values ranging from 4 to 9 based on different criteria. See the following documentation for specific code values: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-urban-continuum-codes/documentation/

4. For each LFS aspect, the respondent was asked “How would you rate the performance of the following aspect of your community’s local food environment.” They were given the option to provide a performance score from 1 to 5 with 1 = Very Poor; 2 = Poor; 3 = Average; 4 = Good; 5 = Excellent; and 0 = Don’t Know.

5. We decided to remove some of the more niche aspects of LFS as they were not relevant to or do not exist in some of the communities we surveyed.

6. The question was phrased “Please rate your general interest in locally grown or processed food items.” The options were given on a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = Not Interested; 3 = Somewhat Interested; 5 = Very Interested. We recoded this to a binary variable where values 1 to 3 = 0 and values 4 to 5 = 1.

7. In other words, if a person selected “Don’t Know” or left the question blank, this was coded as 0. Any other performance score (i.e. 1–5) was coded as 1.

8. The question was phrased “Please rate your general interest in locally grown or processed food items.” The options were given on a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = Not Interested; 3 = Somewhat Interested; 5 = Very Interested. We recoded this to a binary variable where values 1 to 3 = 0 and values 4 to 5 = 1.

9. That is, providing a non-zero performance score for each dependent variable.

10. Examples of the labels were specified in the survey text and specific to the community surveyed. Local food labels were defined as simple labels, identifications, or signs that say an item is local. Farm brands were defined as local labels that identify a specific farm. State branding programs represent labels such as “Kentucky Proud” or “Got to Be NC.”

11. https://newroots.org/

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2017-08377].