Citizen Scientist: Farm 2 Facts Supporting Farmers Markets

Edna Ledesma, Arden He, Phillip Warsaw, Lauren Suerth, Alfonso Morales, Leah Rosenblum and Brian Wiedenfeld
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Edna Ledesma: Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Arden He: Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Phillip Warsaw: Department of Community Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Lauren Suerth: American Family Insurance, Madison, WI 53783, USA
Alfonso Morales: Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Leah Rosenblum: Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Brian Wiedenfeld: Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: As multifunctional loci of local food economies and public activity, farmers markets impart diverse impacts on their surrounding communities. In response to the emerging scholarship on farmers markets, as well as the desires of market managers to buttress their decision-making with cogent data analysis, the Farm 2 Facts data collection toolkit was created by the University of Wisconsin-Madison to measure the economic, social, and ecological impacts of farmers markets. We document here the history of Farm 2 Facts. Through case studies of F2F members, we describe the ways in which individual markets, market organizations, and local governments use farmers markets as a means of achieving differing goals, as well as how Farm 2 Facts necessarily adapted to measure and support these goals. We argue that Farm 2 Facts is in a tight reciprocal relationship with market managers who become citizen scientists in order to support their managerial role and communicate the benefits of their markets. Given that market policy change is often the impetus for collecting data, empathy for the goals of market managers is inseparable from Farm 2 Facts. We find that a sensitivity to the dynamic needs of markets, an adaptive toolkit, and incorporating ongoing research into the toolkit are essential to supporting farmers market managers in their many duties.

Keywords: farmers markets; citizen science; data collection; community impact analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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