Perceived value of a community supported agriculture (CSA) working share. The construct and its dimensions

A qualitative study to inform the development of a subsidized community-supported agriculture program for Chinese Americans in Brooklyn, New York, U.S

The objective of this study was to inform the development of a subsidized, culturally adapted Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program for the Chinese American (CA) community in Brooklyn, New York (NY), USA. We conducted interviews with CA adults to understand their eating and shopping behaviors, interests in CSAs, and recommendations for educational content to inform the development of a subsidized and culturally adapted CSA. We then conducted thematic analysis of those interviews and identified major themes. CA adult participants shared interest in a CSA primarily to support their own health, interact socially with farmers and other participants, and gain access to fresh, culturally appropriate produce. Major concerns for participation, especially among older adults, included language barriers, transportation, and mobility. The unique needs and motivations of CAs should be centered in the development of alternative food access interventions for this population. CA adult participants living in Brooklyn, NY may be interested in a subsidized culturally adapted CSA that includes health information about the produce and provides in-language support. Engaging communities in the development of a health program may be important to ensure accessibility and acceptability for CA populations.

How Does the Concept of Guanxi-circle Contribute to Community Building in Alternative Food Networks? Six Case Studies from China

As social innovations that help to transition towards a more sustainable food system, alternative food networks (AFNs) in China have attracted much scholarly attention in recent years. However, studies of the community building behavior of AFNs at the micro-level in the Chinese social context are scant. Through in-depth case studies conducted between 2017 and 2021 and social network analysis, our study examines how founders of AFNs successfully facilitate community building among their customers. We find that in China, the traditional social-cultural construct, guanxi, plays a critical role in AFNs’ community formation and expansion. The study identifies a three-stage framework for understanding the community building process of AFNs. First, a group of guanxi of the same kind would form a guanxi-circle. Second, the initial guanxi-circle is enhanced and expanded to multiple secondary guanxi-circles. Third, these multiple guanxi-circles together and the interactions among them constitute the community of AFNs. We argue that to strengthen the community, AFNs operators should inspire key members to form secondary guanxi-circles by enhancing their cognitive trust and emotional trust.

From Polanyi to policy: A tool for measuring embeddedness and designing sustainable agricultural policies

Agricultural systems are deeply enmeshed in complex social processes and institutions, something Polanyi called embeddedness. Designing policy for sustainable agricultural activity requires understanding and measuring such embeddedness. Due to the difficulty of measuring complex social dynamics, however, most policy is aimed at measurable metrics such as price and production. The focus on these metrics imports the rational actor conceptualization of economic activity and fails to incorporate the values, motivations, and socio-cultural components of agricultural decision-making. This paper develops a tool for measuring embeddedness called the Embeddedness Type Matrix (ETM). The tool utilizes survey responses to elucidate economic actors' instrumentalism (decisions motivated by self-interest) and marketness (decisions motivated by market factors). Instrumentalism and marketness are considered together along perpendicular axes to determine the embeddedness quadrant of economic actors. The ETM allows researchers and policy-makers to better understand producers and consumers and design sustainability policies that are aligned with their values and motivations.

Working the fields: The organization of labour in community supported agriculture

Community supported agriculture schemes are a prominent example of localized alternatives to the global food system. They are presented as alternative nodes of food production, where the consumer experiences a much closer relationship to the produce they are consuming and to the labour involved in producing it. They lift the commodity veil by inviting the consumer into the world of production – of labour. However, there has been little analysis of labour undertaken in the setting of community supported agriculture, particularly the labour of community supported agriculture consumers, or members. Marxian analysis of the food system at the macro level has underpinned powerful critiques of its shortcomings and highlighted inequalities of land and labour, but has rarely been employed to understand the possibilities of alternative food networks at a more micro level. In this article, I draw on Marx’s concept of alienation to explore the experience and organization of labour within a community supported agriculture scheme in the United Kingdom. In doing so, I present a case study of how labour in a community supported agriculture scheme counteracts experiences of alienation created by capitalism and consider how this might inform (re)organization of labour in the food system, more generally.

How public reporting of prescription quality indicators influence prescribing practices? A survey of general practitioners

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Public reporting of performance data is one of the most popular topics in health care field. The aim of this study was to investigate the transparency mechanism, that is, how public reporting influenced general practitioners' (GPs) prescribing practices.

METHOD

GPs who had the license to prescribe medicine of all 10 primary care institutions were surveyed. Data were collected by an instrument, which exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7; average variance extracted > 0.5; composite reliability > 0.7). Data analysis was conducted by structural equation model.

RESULTS

The results showed that GPs' perceived value (GP's overall assessment of the worth of the public reporting) and attitude (the psychological reaction to public reporting) had a significantly direct effect on behavioural intention (r = 0.28; r = 0.36), and were affected by information accessibility (r = 0.63; r = 0.32). Attitude had a significant effect on perceived value(r = 0.45). Perceived risk (the perceptions of the possible loss due to public reporting, e.g. decreasing their income) did not have a significant relationship with information accessibility, attitude and behavioural intention(r = -0.09; r = 0.01; r = -0.07).

CONCLUSION

The information accessibility, perceived value and attitude have strong effects on prescribing practices of GPs, whereas perceived risk did not play a role in influencing the prescribing practices. Policymakers need to improve the accessibility of prescription quality indicators and pay attention to the perceived values and attitudes of GPs. Policymakers also need to strengthen the risk education of GPs and attach incentives to transparent regulation.