First paragraph: Food Activism Today: Sustainability, Climate Change, and Social Justice reports on the authors’ research into local food systems in four locales across North Carolina: Watauga and Ashe counties in western North Carolina, Edgecombe and Nash counties in eastern North Carolina, and the cities of Charlotte and Durham. In each, Nonini and Holland focus on activists seeking to improve the equity (justice) and sustainability of those systems in various ways. The authors conclude that, as the site of historical and ongoing racial and class disenfranchisement, economic depression, and a stark urban/rural cultural divide, the state has not seen the successful integration of the local foods movement and small-agricultural advocacy movement that has been more prevalent in other areas of the country. . . .

The Republic of Indonesia is relocating its national capital to a new city (NCCI) in East Kalimantan Province (EKP). This future megacity will require a resilient and adequate food supply. This study pro­vides critical evidence base for food supply plan­ning by analyzing the balance of food production and needs, mapping supply chains, and formulating strategies to enhance food supply from buffer zones to the NCCI. Conducted in EKP and its key buffer provinces, the research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative food balance analysis with qualitative insights from stakeholder focus groups. Key findings reveal that in 2023, EKP faced significant deficits in rice and layer eggs, achieved self-sufficiency in broiler meat, and showed a surplus in beef. This dependency on external food supplies necessitates a complex multi-province buffer system, primarily involving South Kalimantan, East Java, South Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and West Sulawesi. The study con­cludes that securing NCCI’s food supply requires an integrated strategy: boosting local production through land optimization and technology, strengthening core logistics infrastructure (includ­ing warehousing and maritime transport), and for­malizing intergovernmental and public-private partnerships. These strategies provide a transfera­ble framework for food security in large cities globally.

Consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is essential for preventing diet-related chronic dis­eases, yet many low-income residents have inade­quate diets because their communities face persis­tent barriers to supplying healthy food. In New York City (NYC), the Green Carts program is a mobile produce vending initiative to improve fresh food access in underserved neighborhoods while supporting immigrant entrepreneurship. This paper presents the findings of a multi-methods evaluation of the Green Carts program and points to a funda­mental tension between the program’s public health goals and vendors’ financial viability. We found that Green Carts are an important source of produce for the more than half of customers who buy from them multiple times per week, but ven­dors earn a median annual income of $20,000,[1] substantially below NYC’s living wage. Low elec­tronic benefit transfer (EBT)[2] acceptance limited accessibility for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, and more than half of NYC’s public housing developments, home to more than 400,000 low income residents, lack con­venient access to Green Carts. Mobile produce vending can meaningfully address urban food ineq­uities, but current economic constraints limit the program’s sustainability and impact. We suggest several improvements to help realize its potential, including financial support for vendors, expanded EBT access, and location incentives aligned with equity goals. This program evaluation provides practical insights for other cities seeking to imple­ment mobile vending models to improve public health and provide economic opportunities for local vendors.

This paper examines the discourse and practice of food system resilience through a community-based case study in southern Wisconsin. In response to COVID-19 disruptions, a farm-to-table restaurant collaborated with farmers, community members, and university researchers to launch the Brix Project, supported by USDA Local Food Promotion Program funding. Using community-based research methods and grounded in a political ecology framework, this study analyzes how resili­ence was defined, operationalized, and politicized by project collaborators. Although the project’s grant framing emphasized market-based economic resilience, community actors envisioned a relational and transformative form of resilience rooted in abundance, flexibility, and stability. The study high­lights how grassroots efforts tactically engaged with dominant resilience discourse to access resources, while simultaneously advancing more integrated and politically conscious food system transfor­mation. This work contributes to scholarship on transformative resilience by demonstrating how relational autonomy and community-rooted defini­tions of resilience can contest and reconfigure con­ventional food system structures.

This reflective essay details my experiences as a professor in a small land-grant university working with counterparts in Puerto Rico. Our work aimed at enhancing food resilience of both regions. While we forged lifelong friendships and learning partner­ships, the structural legacies of colonialism and resource inequality created barriers and ultimately prevented further collaboration. I also discuss how compliance culture in my home institution is not only a nuisance but creates incentives in direct opposition to the goals of our work. I conclude with implications for future partnerships between scholars in regions with different capacities and procedures.

Black and Indigenous women farmers face con­current complex challenges in their farming opera­tions such as a changing climate, institutional discrimination, and a historic wealth gap. The compounding nature of these challenges provides opportunities for agricultural technical assistance providers to create innovative educational approaches to support and build capacity towards greater resilience. American Farmland Trust, North Carolina Extension, and Black Family Land Trust piloted a “Get Climate Smart Food and Agricul­tural System’s Resilience Training” with 30 Black and Indigenous women farmers in North Carolina during 2023 and 2024. The training’s focus was to engage historically underserved women producers to (a) actualize conservation skills and climate smart practices, including monitoring and imple­mentation; (b) improve technical skills regarding diversifying production and marketing systems for greater economic and food system resilience; and (c) develop leadership and mentoring skills to build community and social resilience around food and agriculture. All sessions were structured using a learning circle model that fostered collaborative, participant-driven learning compared to traditional instructor-led sessions; enrolled participants engaged in virtual, in-person, asynchronous, and hands-on activities. After the program concluded, the team conducted 18 in-depth semi-structured interviews with a subset of participants. Findings revealed that the program’s learning circle model and cohort network were highly effective for beginning and experienced Black and Indigenous women farmers, particularly by sustaining rela­tionships and implementing climate smart practices on their land beyond the program timeframe. This article will review the program’s model and discuss how this type of program and its learning out­comes foster social sustainability by boosting individual, farm-scale, and local food resilience.

First paragraph: On the cover of our fall issue (completing our 14th year of publication) is a photo by Timothy Willms, owner of Talus Wind Ranch. Willms participated in the New Mexico Grown Meat Pilot Program reported in the article in this issue, Farm-to-institution in the Southwest: An evaluation of the New Mexico Grown Meat Pilot Program, by Kathryn Coakley, Acadia W. Buro, Caitlyn Sandoval, Bryan Crawford-Garrett, and Francisco Soto Mas. Willms’ heritage sheep are well-suited to the high desert, so their grazing is a fitting use of the land—which can be traced back centuries under Navajo stewardship. Moreover, Talus Wind Ranch’s commitment to local food security is laudable. JAFSCD applauds the return of appropriate-scale raising of heritage sheep in this region, among the poorest in the United States. We hope to see its expansion in the coming years with increased livelihood opportunities, sustainable grazing practices, and place identity branding, especially for Pueblo communities. . . .

This review examines the social consequences of digital food provisioning (DFP), the application of digital technologies to food acquisition and home delivery, and its potential for shaping equitable food futures and promoting food justice. The paper specifically investigates how DFP influences consumer behavior, labor conditions, and social relations, drawing insights from current studies and empirical evidence. By synthesizing a wide range of scholarly work, this review aims to uncover how digital transformations in food provisioning can either reinforce or mitigate social inequalities and discusses strategies to leverage DFP towards achieving a more equitable and just food system.

In the UK, place-based food initiatives, herein “food hubs,” offer a range of economic, social, and/or environmental benefits via the programs, activities and support they offer. Examples of food hubs include food banks, food pantries, social supermarkets, community farms and gardens, and community cafes. Identifying, monitoring, and communicating the benefits of and areas of improvement for food hubs are important in ena­bling these organizations to access funding, scale up and/or out, and support their ambitions to enhance community development and promote community-based circular food systems (C-B CFS). However, due to constraints in time, funding, and resources, evaluation of the work of food hubs across the UK is limited to date and does not cap­ture the multidimensional benefits they provide or the impacts they have to achieve a C-B CFS. This paper presents the co-production and application of an impact evaluation tool aiming to support food hubs to capture evidence of the benefits they provide, and areas where additional benefits can be achieved across four domains: (a) sustainability and resilience; (b) health and wellbeing; (c) access and demand for healthy, local food; and (d) food secu­rity and economy. The tool, available freely online, was implemented at 10 diverse food hubs in Leeds, UK, to capture their activities and impact. Partici­pating food hubs agreed that the tool offers a comprehensive yet practical method of evidencing the impact of their activities. The evidence cap­tured using the tool could strengthen both indivi­dual PBFIs and the wider community food sector. By demonstrating their contributions to national and global priorities in health, food security, and sustainability, this evidence supports advocacy for greater policy recognition and funding. After assessing the implementation of the too across multiple PBFIs, we found how structured impact monitoring could enhance operational resilience, inform strategic planning, and reinforce the case for systemic support of C-B CFS.

The Inter-institutional Network for Food, Agricul­ture, and Sustainability (INFAS) connects food sys­tem scholars, educators, and action-researcher activists across the United States. As a collaborative network endowed by the W.K. Kellogg Founda­tion, INFAS envisions a U.S. food system that is environmentally sustainable and socially just. With several new members joining the INFAS Executive Committee in 2023, 12 past and current members embarked on a facilitated “strategic storytelling” effort in lieu of strategic planning. We did so to collectively understand the past and present of INFAS before planning for its future; craft an out­ward-facing story to better communicate with the broader INFAS membership, prospective mem­bers, and partners; and share our personal stories to build stronger relationships with each other. Two sessions produced these personal stories and a timeline of key events and characters that we coa­lesced into a shared story. Augmented by annual reports, internal records, and external sources, this reflective essay shares that story organized by broad chapters across over 15 years of INFAS activity, including Prologue: Influences & Origins; Chapter 1: Formalizing the Network; Chapter 2: Reorienting Toward Equity; and Chapter 3: Reor­ganizing to Do the Work. The essay concludes with the Epilogue, wherein we acknowledge long-term goals to integrate community leaders in the network and support underrepresented scholars and students despite tensions of time and capacity constraints; the need for larger infusions of fund­ing to catalyze and amplify collaborations; and limi­tations imposed by the incentive structures, bureaucracy, and exclusivity of academia. Finally, we look toward the next chapter in our story by deepening our investment in projects and pilot programs that engage our broader member­ship and advance our vision of a sustainable and just food system.