Professor & Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems University of California Davis Davis, California, United States
Civic agriculture, in which farms and local food systems are part of a community's social and economic development, holds the potential to cultivate a stronger ecological citizenship among consumers of locally-produced food, in addition to producing many other positive social and ecological values. Yet, competitive pressures from a capitalist economy commonly undermine the well-being of farmers within civic agriculture; in many cases, it appears that the social bonds forged in civic agriculture are not strong enough to resist these pressures and their negative effects. Participatory action research (PAR) holds great promise in directly addressing these tensions in civic agriculture. By dismantling hierarchies of knowledge, the perspectives of various participants can be brought into dialogue to develop relevant research questions and approaches, and various forms of expertise can collaborate in analysis and synthesis. Drawing on three case studies of (1) the University of California food procurement practice orienting toward just and regenerative values; (2) Community Supported Agriculture in California; and (3) a PAR research project with an urban agriculture organization in Sacramento, California, this paper examines the potentials of PAR to help fulfill the promises of civic agriculture. By drawing on the case studies and tacking between two theoretical frameworks — political economy and community economies — the paper also outlines a theoretically-informed research agenda for PAR-informed civic agriculture.
