Abstract
Engagement happens when academics and non-academics form partnerships to create mutual understanding, and then take action together. An example is the “value web” work associated with W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food Systems Higher Education–Community Partnership. Partners nationally work on local food systems development by building value webs. “Value chains,” a concept with considerable currency in the private sector, involves creating non-hierarchical relationships among otherwise disparate actors and entities to achieve collective common goals. The value web concept is extended herein by separating the values of the web itself, such as the value of collaboration, from values “in” the web, such as credence values associated with a product or service. By sharing and discussing case examples of work underway around the United States, the authors make a case for employing the value webs concept to represent a strategy for local food systems development, specifically, and for higher education–community partnerships, generally.
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Notes
Winrock International is a nonprofit that works worldwide on environmental and economic development projects. The Henry A. Wallace Center at Winrock focuses on creating a more sustainable food system in the United States. The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University focuses on similar alternative food projects in Iowa and the United States as a whole.
Abbreviations
- CFSC:
-
Chicago Food Systems Collaborative
- CSI:
-
Community Seafood Initiative
- ICRD:
-
Institute for Community Resource Development
- ISU:
-
Iowa State University
- NYC:
-
New York City
- PRAG:
-
Policy Research Action Group
- USDA:
-
United States Department of Agriculture
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Block, D.R., Thompson, M., Euken, J. et al. Engagement for transformation: Value webs for local food system development. Agric Hum Values 25, 379–388 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-008-9113-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-008-9113-5