Research

Explore writings that deepen understanding of food systems, environmental justice, and community-based learning.

Low-Income Families

Leading Food Access Change

This article explores how low-income families in Duluth, Minnesota, helped design a community meal-kit program to improve healthy eating. By directly engaging participants in designing sustainable solutions, the research shows how community-led approaches more effectively overcome barriers to healthy food access.

How Can Middle-of-the-Chain Organizations Improve Farmer Livelihoods and Reduce Food Insecurity

Agroecological Transition & Food Insecurity in Regional Systems

Using an agroecological framework, this study maps regional food flows to address systemic failures. The authors advocate for building a supportive social infrastructure and "relational spaces" to connect these two disconnected groups. It demonstrates how fostering reciprocal relationships can simultaneously protect regenerative farmers and expand healthy food access.

Defining the Agricultural Landscape of the Lake Superior Region

This research evaluates whether a 15-county region in Northeast Minnesota and Northwest Wisconsin has the land capacity and economic potential to sustainably feed its local population. While the study concludes that the region physically possesses more than enough land to sustain its people, it exposes severe structural gaps, proving that intermediary organizations are the missing link required to make a regional food system viable.

This study examines how a collaborative partnership between two Duluth nonprofit organizations creates a viable local food pathway that bridges supply and demand-side system barriers. By acting as a flexible intermediary, this nonprofit model simultaneously protects small farmers from rigid commercial demands while empowering food-insecure consumers to access and utilize healthy, locally grown food.

Cities of Farmers

This research details how early twentieth-century Duluth leaders proactively built a thriving municipal food system from scratch to sustain a rapidly growing industrial workforce. By integrating urban agricultural education, clearing affordable land plots, and launching regional farmers markets, this cross-sector collaboration successfully fed the city-region for decades before mid-century corporate consolidation dismantled it.

Duluth Food Assistance Report

UMD student Gage Amberg designed this report that introduces a systems-based assessment framework to evaluate the strength and interconnectedness of Duluth’s local food assistance ecosystem. Moving beyond traditional household hunger metrics, it analyzes community capacity to help build a more equitable public health infrastructure and address severe neighborhood food insecurity.

Food Forward’s Meal Boxes & Food Security Impact

This article studies a Duluth-based meal box initiative, Food Forward, and shows how home-delivered meal boxes can address multiple dimensions of food security (access, availability, utilization, and stability). It argues that involving community members in planning and operations strengthens outcomes and makes the intervention more sustainable.

Local Food as an Economic Driver

This report demonstrates how shifting food production locally within Minnesota’s Taconite Assistance Area can serve as a powerful economic driver. By modeling various localized production scenarios, the study shows that investing in regional agriculture and distribution infrastructure could retain millions in food spending, create new jobs, and significantly boost the local economy.

85 Years of Farming

This report analyzes agricultural trends across the northern coniferous forest areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan from 1873 to 1958. By examining long-term data on climate, crop yields, livestock production, and farm income, the study documents the historical transition from pioneering timber-land cultivation to mid-century regional farming practices.

More Artifacts to come!

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