There is increasing awareness that community food policies and programs can address issues of equity, sustainability, profitability, and resilience in food systems. Community coalitions, local governments, food policy councils, cooperative extension, and other stakeholders seek to improve community food systems through policy and programmatic development. However, these groups often do not know what types of policy or program models exist to help achieve their goals. This research identified expert consensus on three important topics related to community food systems resilience: (1) values that should guide adopting and implementing poli­cies and programs to facilitate community food systems resilience, (2) benefits of adopting policies and programs that support community food sys­tems resilience, and (3) policies, programs, and ini­tiatives that are indicators of resilience. These indi­cators can be used to assess the resilience of communities and to help communities identify pol­icy options to achieve specific goals and objectives. The results of this study were used to create a com­munity food system resilience audit tool that com­munity groups can use to assess the current resili­ency of their food system, identify priorities, and set goals. The audit tool focuses on seven core themes that contribute to community food systems resilience: agricultural and ecological sustainability, community health, community self-reliance, dis­tributive and democratic leadership, focus on the farmer and food maker, food justice, and place-based economics. The individual indicators in this audit tool provide specific policies and practices that can be adopted by local governments, sup­ported by cooperative extension agents, and advo­cated for by food policy councils and community-based organizations.

Food waste is a critical problem in the U.S. and globally. Most household food waste is landfilled, with just a small proportion composted. House­hold food waste accounts for a substantial amount of the food waste problem, but because it occurs in the privacy of people’s homes, we have a limited understanding of it, hindering our ability to create policies or programs to address the issue. Commu­nity composting programs have the potential to reduce the amount of landfilled food waste and convert it into a valuable resource. One strategy to address this gap is citizen science, whereby the public is trained to collect data and participate in the research cycle. This technique is particularly useful for answering research questions in real-world conditions to which researchers typically do not have access, such as individuals’ daily lives and activities in their homes. The purpose of this study was to gain a baseline understanding of the amount of food waste individual households contribute to a community compost program, the primary rea­sons people generate food waste, the types of packaging households typically discard, and individuals’ knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about food waste and the impact that a community-based compost program has on their lives. Participants in a com­munity-based compost program in Florida have positive attitudes and beliefs about reducing food waste, but they have a less positive perception of the value judgments of influential people in their social circles (i.e., social norms) regarding food waste. Participants have limited confidence that they can reduce their food waste. Community-based compost program participants indicate that the program has increased their awareness of food waste, reduced their waste, and increased their appreciation of community-based circular food sys­tems (CB-CFS), i.e., systems that support commu­nity well-being while minimizing environmental harm and resource depletion. This study highlights the value of a community-based compost program for diverting food waste from individual house­holds, increasing knowledge, and changing resident attitudes and behaviors related to food waste. Our findings suggest that key behavioral variables, such as self-confidence, may support individual ability to reduce food waste, and that participation in an community composting program may bolster self-confidence and increase the likelihood that individuals reduce household food waste. We recommend that stakeholders interested in developing a com­munity composting program conduct feasibility assessments and provide education to program participants.

Barriers to the successful implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) education and outreach initiatives are being documented across higher education institutions as DEI policies and protocols are gaining attention. Despite growing attention to promote DEI in higher education institutions, there remains a need to examine barriers preventing DEI efforts in a systematic way, particularly in Extension education contexts to formulate strategies to promote DEI. We present an expert, consensus-based framework to identify the most salient barriers to successful DEI implementation in Extension. We also discuss opportunities for Extension practitioners to overcome salient barriers with tailored mitigation strategies.

Efforts to disseminate heat-related illness (HRI) prevention practices among Latino farmworkers represent a critical occupational safety strategy in Florida. Targeted initiatives, however, require understanding the workplace dynamics that guide agricultural safety behaviors. This article reports focus group data collected in 2018 from citrus harvesters in central Florida and provides an in-depth perspective on the workplace culture that shapes their implementation of heat safety measures. Results indicate that citrus harvesters regularly suffered HRI symptoms yet rarely reported or sought treatment for their injuries. In some cases, the risks of developing HRI were accepted as a facet of agricultural work and harvesters blamed themselves for their illnesses. Implementation of safety practices hinged less on knowledge than on the availability of water and rest breaks and the quality of employer-employee relations and exchanges. Thus, trust was a determinant of workers’ attitudes toward management that contributed to a harvesting operation’s safety climate. Results highlight the difficulties of putting into practice measures that are not rewarded by the workplace culture and suggest that the extent to which intervention strategies promote not only individual safety behaviors but organizational accountability may predict their effectiveness.