Gardening for Food Well-Being in the COVID-19 Era

Wild and backyard food use during COVID-19 in upstate New York, United States

Introduction

COVID-19 acutely shocked both socio-economic and food systems in 2020. We investigated the impact of COVID-19 on production and consumption of gardened produce, backyard poultry, wild game and fish, and foraged mushrooms, berries, and other plants in New York State, aiming to understand crisis influenced food choice and motivations, including food security.

Methods

We conducted an online, cross-sectional survey in October-December 2020 with a convenience sample of participants (n = 505) with an interest in gardening, poultry rearing, foraging, hunting, and/or fishing from six counties in upstate New York. We recruited through the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and other relevant email and social media pages.

Results

Across the wild and backyard food production strategies, 4.0-14.3% of respondents reported engaging for the first time and 39.6-45.7% reported increased production (a little or a lot more), and 31.6-42.7% of respondents' production was the same as the previous year. Consumption of foods produced was widespread, including fruit and vegetables (97.6% of producers also consumed), backyard eggs (92.7%), and foraged foods (93.8%). For meats, a majority consumed backyard poultry meat (51.2%), wild-caught fish (69.7%), and wild game they hunted (80.1%). The frequency of consumption of fruit and vegetables (average of 13.5 times/month) and eggs (16.4 times/month) was very high, while average consumption of poultry meat, foraged foods, fish, and wild game ranged from 3.1 to 5.8 times/month. The number of respondents who reported "have more control over food availability" as motivation to produce all wild and backyard foods increased from 2019 to 2020 (p < 0.05 - p < 0.001). There was also a significant relationship between experiences of COVID-19 related hardship (i.e., food insecurity, income loss) with gardening and poultry-rearing (p ≤ 0.05), but not with other production methods or with consumption of wild and backyard foods.

Discussion

Our findings help to locate wild and backyard foods within COVID-19 impacted food environments, and describe food security as a particularly relevant motivation, among others, reported by respondents in 2020. Given this, New York State service providers can use these findings to tailor current future support for households exerting control over their own food environments with wild and backyard foods, allowing the state to be better prepared for future crises.

Natural environments, psychosocial health, and health behaviors in a crisis - A scoping review of the literature in the COVID-19 context

The COVID-19 outbreak led to major restrictions globally, affecting people's psychosocial health and their health behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this scoping review was to summarize the available research regarding nature and health in the COVID-19 context. Keywords relating to natural environments and COVID-19 were combined to conduct a systematic online search in six major databases. Eligibility criteria were a) published since 2020 with data collected in the COVID-19 context b) peer-reviewed, c) original empirical data collected on human participants, d) investigated the association between natural environments and psychosocial health or health behaviors, and e) English, German, or Scandinavian languages. Out of 9126 articles being screened, we identified 188 relevant articles, representing 187 distinct studies. Most research focused on adults in the general population and was predominantly conducted in the USA, Europe, and China. Overall, the findings indicate that nature may mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on psychological health and physical activity. Through a systematic thematic analysis of the extracted data, three primary themes were identified: 1) type of nature assessed, 2) psychosocial health and health behaviors investigated, and 3) heterogeneity in the nature-health relationship. Research gaps in the COVID-19 context were identified regarding I) nature characteristics that promote psychosocial health and health behaviors, II) investigations of digital and virtual nature, III) psychological constructs relating to mental health promotion, IV) health-promoting behaviors other than physical activity, V) underlying mechanisms regarding heterogeneity in the nature-health relationship based on human, nature, and geographic characteristics, and VI) research focusing on vulnerable groups. Overall, natural environments demonstrate considerable potential in buffering the impact of stressful events on a population level on mental health. However, future research is warranted to fill the mentioned research gaps and to examine the long-term effects of nature exposure during COVID-19.

“Connecting With Good People and Good Plants”: Community Gardener Experiences in New York State During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Community gardens are collective projects in which participants collaborate to maintain a garden. They provide many biophysical and cultural ecosystem services, contributing to individual and community resilience and wellbeing. These benefits may be even more appreciated during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, since community gardens require efforts from multiple gardeners in shared spaces, the pandemic also exposed some of their vulnerabilities. This study focuses on the benefits community gardens have offered during the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges the pandemic posed to sustaining community garden activity, and recommendations to address these issues moving forward. We conducted our study in four cities in New York representing a gradient of socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics: Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, and New York City. We collected data from surveys and semi-structured interviews with community gardeners and analyzed them using mixed models and thematic coding. The primary benefits gardeners derived from their community garden experiences were: a sense of connection with other gardeners, their communities, and nature; mental and physical wellbeing; and a safe space of refuge. In addition to material shortages (e.g., seeds), the biggest challenge gardeners faced due to the pandemic was the limited degree of socializing in the gardens resulting from personal behavioral changes and rules imposed by gardens. Despite the challenges, gardeners reported enjoying the 2020 garden season. The pandemic also created opportunities for gardens to serve their communities, such as organizing programs for composting, food donation and distribution, and home gardening. Our findings suggest that community gardens can be resilient sites of reprieve during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, providing essential benefits for gardeners and local residents. To sustain community garden resilience, we recommend community gardens and gardeners cultivate connections and diversity, within and between the biological and human communities of their gardens.

Reducing Anxiety with Nature and Gardening (RANG): Evaluating the Impacts of Gardening and Outdoor Activities on Anxiety among U.S. Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted mental health. Growing research has identified the mental health benefits of nature contact, including gardening. We used a cross-sectional survey to investigate the association between gardening and other outdoor activities with anxiety among U.S. adults. The RANG (Reducing Anxiety with Nature and Gardening) survey was distributed online from June−September 2020 through social media (Twitter and Facebook) and a national Master Gardeners listserv. Survey questions captured demographics, COVID-19 experiences, gardening, outdoor activities, and anxiety using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale. Data were analyzed using chi-square, Fisher’s exact, and Kruskal−Wallis tests, as well as logistic regression. Among participants, 46% reported anxiety symptoms. Participants who had gardened ≥ 15 years and those gardening > 8 h over two weeks had lower anxiety scores. Spending more time outdoors on weekdays also decreased anxiety scores. After adjusting for covariates, lower odds of anxiety were identified for 50−69 and 70−89-year-olds vs. 18−29-year-olds; males vs. females; and Texas vs. Maryland residents. These findings confirm increased anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest that sustained gardening and other outdoor activities could help reduce anxiety.

Sociomaterialities of health, risk and care during COVID-19: Experiences of Australians living with a medical condition

People living with pre-existing illnesses were identified as one of the groups most at risk when COVID-19 erupted. In this article, using the method of case studies developed from interviews, we explore how Australians in this category considered their risk and responded to it as they were learning about COVID-19 and living with restrictions and lockdown conditions in the early months of the pandemic. Building on the literature on assemblages of health and illness, therapeutic landscapes and the materialities of care, our analysis considers sociomaterialities of health, risk and care described in six featured case studies. Each person recounted a unique narrative that described the coming together of several different human and nonhuman agents in their experiences. Yet a number of overarching and intersecting themes can also be traced across the participants' narratives: the vital contributions of lay care and self-care as part of the materialities of care, health and wellbeing; the role played by social networks, both online and in-person, for people in learning about and coping with COVID-19 and its potential risks; previous embodied and affective experiences of illness, vulnerability and care; and the role played by place and space in generating either therapeutic or distressing affective atmospheres. These findings have implications for better understandings of the situated sociomaterial contexts of how embodied experience, affective forces and encounters and relationships with other people and with things, place and space come together in crises such as COVID-19.

Exploring Key Factors Determining US Consumer Preferences for Growing over Buying Fruit in Pre-Covidian and Covidian Times

This study provides insights for managers in the food retail sector, the horticultural industry, actors involved in community gardening and farmers’ markets. It proposes a model that investigates key factors determining US consumer preferences for growing fruit over buying it in pre-Covidian and Covidian times. For this purpose, an online survey with a sample of 383 US residents was conducted. Partial least squares structural equation modelling shows that subjective knowledge about fruit and the perceived impact of COVID-19 are the most important drivers of preferences for growing over buying in Covidian times. The impact of COVID-19 had no relevance for the pre-Covidian times. For both scenarios, only age and gender as socio-demographic factors were found to influence subjective knowledge and the perceived impact of COVID-19. Other sociodemographic factors were not found to have any impact.