This research project is supported by a $500,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The purpose of the support is wide-ranging — to explore food systems and food practices throughout Colorado and beyond. Toward that end, the grant has enabled the following research projects: examining consumer and producers cooperatives in Colorado; unpacking the rural-urban divide within Colorado; looking at the long-term impacts of various alternative food practices (e.g. farmers’ markets, food cooperatives, and CSAs) on eaters’ perceptions and practices; understanding the experiential impact of various ways of knowing the food system from a social justice perspective; and exploring the sharing economy as it is being practiced within food systems.

Many of these projects are supplemented with funding from National Research Foundation of Korea. These monies from the government of Korea fund research on the subject of big data and the digitialization of food systems. Specific projects include the study of: (1) how big data and precision agriculture are impacting conventional farmers and restructuring the food system; (2) Farm Hack and Right to Repair movements; (3) big data-driven nudges by retail food firms; and (4) how data and code in agriculture simultaneously restrict and create openings for how we think about food and the future of food.

The 5-year AgriFood Chains project began in 2014. For numerous years, CSU Sociology graduate student James Hale was involved. He received his Ph.D. in 2017 and is now a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand.