With funding from a Sustainable Community Innovation Grant (SCIG) from Southern SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education) and the Southern Rural Development Center, we are currently examining the impact of farmer-consumer interactions on production practices. More specifically, we are studying the effect of personal(izing) market relationships on the practices that farmers are using to produce food and on the assumptions and choices of local food consumers. By conducting interviews with farmers and intercept surveys with consumers, we are deepening our understanding of how the movement to localize food systems is contributing (or not) to the development of environmentally sustainable agriculture.
