The purpose was to examine whether connectedness to water could improve the predictive power of the Theory of Planned Behavior on outdoor water conservation intentions. We adapted the well-establis...

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.

The global trend of urbanization coupled with an increasing awareness of the importance of food systems resilience, has led to an increasing interest in urban agriculture to sustainably feed the rapidly growing urban population and mitigate against food supply chain disruptions. While home and community gardens have been long studied, there has been relatively little empirical research focused specifically on commercial urban agriculture (CUA) operations. The purpose of this study was to characterize commercial urban farms, and to identify their primary barriers to business development and expansion, their perceptions of future opportunities, and their specific informational needs. Because CUA has received relatively less attention in previous empirical research, a qualitative approach was used for this needs assessment to collect rich, contextualized information to help differentiate the specific barriers, opportunities and needs of CUA operations as opposed to their rural counterparts. We conducted semi-structured interviews (n= 29) of CUA producers in Florida. These interviews revealed that CUA operations face many of the same barriers that are common to establishing and growing small farms, with additional barriers due to local government regulations and tensions associated with farming on land that is not traditionally used for agriculture. Despite these difficulties, CUA operators believe their urban location is a key benefit to their operation and they see a variety of opportunities for future business and market expansion.