The research presented in the following chapters offers a partial answer to these questions, developing a food systems and climate change curriculum as an example of more creatively integrating environmental challenges into already-successful educational avenues such as school gardens and food-based education. Partnerships with farms, school gardens, food systems researchers, and climate change educators help foster this curriculum into existence and shape it as a work in progress. Food and climate literacy come together in a food production focused series of activities that guide students towards taking informed action to mitigate climate change through food production and consumption choices. Teaching students how to grow food has an inherent tie to promoting food security and food sovereignty; going one step further, there is an embedded hypothesis underlying this curriculum development that, through participating in where food comes from , students can better understand other aspects of the food system such as the consumption choices and importance of composting rather than throwing away food waste, making the production element an important leverage point for food systems education. Furthermore, food production spaces offer hopeful examples of removing carbon from the atmosphere, acting out the carbon cycle on a local scale. In the words of one school garden teacher, “the garden system is a perfect metaphor for the complexity of the climate system,” and thus a promising venue for engaging students in CCE.The research studies compiled in this dissertation employ participatory, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research designs.

Mixed-method approaches to inquiry combine to yield results, drawing from participant observation, semi-structured interviews, key stakeholder surveys, GIS analysis, grow trays 4×4 and literature review methodologies. The studies draw heavily from interdisciplinary epistemologies that value multiple ways of knowing and seek to incorporate multiple voices, especially those that have been historically marginalized, into the research design, implementation, analysis, and communication of results. The relevant spheres of influence for this grassroots and bottom-up approach to knowledge creation are ultimately decision-makers in climate policy making and those negotiating food systems power structures. The research methods are grounded in the study of social science, drawing from texts such as Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method , What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry and Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies . Michael Burawoy and Pierre Bourdieu inspire the practice of interpreting case studies, embedding them in an appropriate theoretical framework, and understanding interview subjects . As Walton illustrates in his essay “Making the Theoretical Case,” a case can change as you dive into it, and finding the appropriate theoretical frame is the work of the researcher; he cautions against the danger of coming in with a set theoretical frame in mind and trying to force the incoming data into that frame . Chapter 2 in particular exemplifies a case that started as a case of one thing and became a case of something else as the layers of research methodology, like layers of an onion, peeled back initial assumptions and observations until it struck at the core. Incorporating Elinor Ostrom’s call for better integration of the social and ecological sciences in governing sustainable social-ecological systems , interdisciplinary research questions in the chapters that follow incorporate natural and social scientists, as well as practical agricultural science. Doing participatory research requires a mix of experience and immersion in the literature to guide those who seek to do social justice oriented, empowering work with non-academic research partners.

The scholarship of Jill Harrison , Jules Pretty , Nicole Klenk , and Alastair Iles is instrumental for guiding researchers towards effective practices that co-produce rather than extract knowledge. These researchers share a focus on climate and food systems research that is especially relevant for this dissertation.The chapters that follow investigate food systems research questions in the contexts of the San Juan Islands in Washington State, and the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. While all chapters engage with food systems holistically, each chapter enters into the food systems research question from a different element of the system. The second chapter focuses on the production side, introducing a case study of small-scale sustainable farming at the community scale on Lopez Island. The third chapter presents a food access and distribution research project taking place in the East Bay, investigating pathways through which urban produced foods do make it into the hands of food insecure consumers. The fourth chapter uses the lens of education to present an evaluation of a food and climate change curriculum, illustrating how climate change education and food systems research can work together to achieve common goals . The conclusion synthesizes key findings from all three chapters, pointing out what bigger picture food system questions are answered as well as questions requiring further investigation in the arena of relocalizing climate-friendly food systems. Key strands of literature running throughout the paper include the literature on agroecology and emerging research on its application to the urban context- urban agroecology . Chapter 2 engages with the agroecological paradigm for food systems reform in a rural context, and Chapter 3 turns over new questions in the urban East Bay context. The chapter draws on scholarship from a recent RUAF magazine titled “Urban Agroecology,” that proposes UAE “not as a goal, yet an entry point into, and part of, much wider discussions of desirable presents and futures… [it is] a stepping stone to collectively think and act upon food system knowledge production, access to healthy and culturally appropriate food, decent living conditions for food producers and the cultivation of living soils and biodiversity, all at once” . Agroecology and UAE have important implications for how food systems education should be conducted , which are implicit in the pedagogical foundations underpinning the food and climate curriculum in Chapter 4. The chapters, with their diverse research questions and publication outlets, push back against a food system that destroys human and environmental health alike, and seek out climate friendly alternatives through collaborative, participatory research projects. The research presented in chapters 2, 3, and 4 make the case for diverse values and benefits associated with relocalizing sustainable and equitable food systems centered around small diversified farms, in places where this type of food system transformation is sought. Rather than arguing for the complete overthrow of the current industrial food system, the primary contribution of these cases is to argue that shifts to current practices are both necessary and possible yet must be supported by appropriate and enabling governance structures. There are social, ecological, and educational benefits to adopting agroecological food system practices, but it is difficult to enact these practices holistically and systemically across food system elements in the current U.S. political economy. The cases offer lessons or “pilots” that are relevant to the operations of large-scale farms and industrial processes as well as small scale, agroecological operations: through adding plant diversity and minimizing soil disturbance, for example, numerous benefits can be achieved for farmers , for local ecology, and for global climate change.

Therefore, findings implicate the policy and planning domain in terms of action needed to sustain and scale positive food system reform impacts, on a variety of levels and with attention to social justice implications. The findings also make important contributions to methods of climate change communication and education: effective CCE will manifest differently in different contexts and must allow for each audience to express the environmental concerns that are most pressing, immediate, and relevant in that context. Through considering food systems and climate systems holistically, opportunities for public health benefits, local environmental improvements, and educational growth can be realized.Lopez Island is situated 4 miles off the Washington State mainland in the Salish Sea, where it is Figure 3- Lopez Island Farmland a lighthouse for an alternative, agroecological model of food production at the community scale. Approximately 18,000 acres of agricultural land in the San Juan Islands chain form a network of non-GMO, non-chemical based agricultural land. The 5,000 acres of Lopez Island farms stand in direct contrast to conventional farming: they are largely small scale, human powered, diversified, educational, knowledge-intensive, horticulture products reliant on natural fertilizers and integrated pest management strategies, and localized in terms of who they serve2 . The Lopez Community Land Trust lists 27 farms on their annually published “farm products guide,” on this island of 2,500 year-round inhabitants. Lopez farmers seek to optimize many outcomes besides yield and several actively cultivate seed diversity through seed saving and local exchange. Seeds are selected for drought resilience, flavor, nutrient content, ability to withstand disease and pest pressure, and general endurance and adaptability to local conditions. The resident community is invested in local farms, through school food procurement, local markets, and regular volunteer presence. The summer tourism industry can attribute some fraction of its success to the local food system, as a recent tourism survey indicated “natural/rural scenery” as the top reason and “local food” in the top half of 15 listed reasons tourists come to the San Juan Islands . However, the tourism industry simultaneously poses a challenge to the local agriculture community, as the real estate and land markets are increasingly displacing farmers due to development pressures and desires for second homes on the islands. As an island community, Lopez has unique considerations around food procurement. Importing food from the mainland is expensive and risky in the face of natural disasters, as ferry service to the islands is easily disrupted and unreliable in the face of adverse weather conditions. Ferry service costs $47 roundtrip from Anacortes to Lopez per vehicle and driver in the summer season. There is an added incentive on Lopez to adopt self sufficient and soil regenerating farming practices at the community scale due to its geographic isolation in combination with rocky, relatively poor soil quality. This “island incentive” is important to factor in when considering the widespread adoption of sustainable agriculture on Lopez; as the San Juan County Agricultural Strategic Action Plan reports, “islanders naturally place a high value on food security and may benefit from their isolation to preserve genetic diversity, for example, by establishing an organic seed industry” . As food supply chains in today’s globalized food system are increasingly threatened by natural and climate-exacerbated disasters, all communities will soon have increased incentives to invest in sustainable food production as a form of resilience, food security, and climate adaptation. In the realm of food self-sufficiency, innovative production systems, and climate resilience, there is much to learn from island nations and communities that are on the front lines of adapting food systems to and mitigating climate change. Lopez is striving to create a robust, resilient, socially just local food system, a distinct and more complex goal than merely investing in and promoting local food production. Individual farmers starting to adopt and successfully deploy regenerative practices is not the same as creating a sustainable and resilient local food system. A local food system, as outlined in the previous chapter, includes not just production, but transportation, distribution, marketing, retail, preparation, consumption, waste recycling, and education across system elements. A food system that is socially just, compensating farmers fairly for their labor while balancing affordability for the consumer across income groups, requires a change in food system economic transactions from the status quo. A food system that is environmentally sustainable and mitigates climate change, storing more carbon in the soil than it releases and minimizing emissions throughout the system elements, requires transformation of the dominant industrial food system. Lopez farmers are striving to increase and quantify their soil carbon reservoir, with less progress to date on reconfiguring the economic status quo. What can this island farming community tell us about creating and scaling alternatives to the chemical-industrial farming industry? What are the key challenges, tensions, and opportunities on Lopez for building a local food system that is socially just and environmentally sustainable? What are the next steps for Lopez, and other counties or regions, in moving towards goals and vision statements for re-localized food systems? These questions, when answered, become relevant not just to farmers and researchers, but importantly, to policymakers, economists, and businesses that must implement new policies and economic structures effectively in partnership with farmer- and community-generated vision statements.