JAFSCD: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Publication of the Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems

Youth are an often untapped but potent resource for community change. To engage youth in community change coalitions requires more time, resources, and intentionality than many anticipate, making it imperative to base the work on well-established principles. Using outcome and process data from a multi-year initiative in seven communities, we describe beneficial results for youth, adults, and communities. The analysis of the most successful community-scale action finds that three implementation principles are critical: (1) asking the right strategic questions in the right order; (2) creating organizational structures and processes that integrate youth and adults into joint decision making; and (3) marshaling boundary-spanning community leaders with diverse skills and extensive networks. The research highlights how community development ideas can augment the predominant research emphasis on youth engagement methods and individual developmental outcomes, focusing attention on whether communities have the leadership and institutional capacity to nurture and sustain youth voice in public life.

The threat to sustainability posed byglobal economic integration and the surging interest in local and regional food systems provide an opportunity to unite the diverse constituencies of the sustainable agriculture movement behind a common political and economic agenda. Neither the campaign to influence the Farm Bill nor a romantic vision of bygone agrarian communities are sufficient to broaden the movement's existing political base and deepen its influence. This paper suggests an alternative approach: grassroots organizing guided by the vision of “community-controlled economic development.” Theory linking this new paradigm in local economic development to sustainable agriculture is presented, along with practical examples from innovative networks promoted by the California Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA). I analyze the experience of CASA organizations, both separately and as an alliance, to illuminate how a strategic vision of community-controlled economic development can enable the movement to meet three difficult political challenges: holding power accountable; unifying environmental and social agendas; and developing strong leadership accountable to the movement's community base.

JAFSCD: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Publication of the Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems

In evaluating local policy implementation, workaround stories—accounts of deliberate efforts to evade, subvert, or even break rules or procedures in order to get the job done—are valuable evaluative indicators. By “backward mapping” ( Elmore, 1979 ) from frequently mentioned workarounds, we can identify flawed elements of policy- or grant-making systems. However, workaround stories captured in confidential interviews pose an ethical dilemma for evaluators. If reported intact, these stories potentially expose their tellers to repercussions from compliance-oriented superiors in the bureaucratic chain of command. But unless these stories—in all their vivid details—are told, it is less likely that those superiors will be motivated to fix the often intricate implementation problems which create the need for workarounds in the first place. We explore options for resolving this dilemma in light of the American Evaluation Association guiding principles and the trade-off between the competing public goods of innovation and accountability.