Agroecology, Climate Resilience, & Food Justice

We are looking for several students to join our team starting 9/30/2025 – through June 2026 (potentially longer). Apply here this form before 5/9/25 @ 11:59pm

Christopher M. Bacon (Environmental Studies and Sciences), Alejandra Guzmán Luna (Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico), V. Ernesto Mendéz (University of Vermont) and co-authors from cooperatives and universities in Nicaragua and Chiapas Mexico recently published an article in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems assessing the extent to which diversification among coffee smallholders in Mesoamerica can contribute to a transformative agroecology and improved livelihoods. The study also analyzes the potential role of participatory action research (PAR) in fostering diversification and food sovereignty. The research teams replicated methods in both locations embedding a mixed methods study within a PAR approach to conduct 338 surveys, 96 interviews, 44 focus groups, and participant observation during two international farmer-to-farmer exchanges. Findings show that although coffee-producing households in both locations report several diversification activities, more than 50% still experience annual periods of food scarcity. Discussions of findings with study participants suggest that farmers and co-ops are in the early stages of developing transformative agroecology initiatives for food sovereignty. Significant challenges to these efforts include decades of political economic exclusion and dependence on coffee sales. Leverage points to advance this goal include increasing land access, farm diversification for subsistence, native seed conservation, and diversifying diets.

Raj Patel, a noted expert in the world food system, delivered the keynote talk for an SCU event on decolonizing the food system to address intertwined problems of hunger, climate change, and racism. He diagnosed the ills of the current food system—citing COVID, climate change, conflict, colonialism, capitalism, and “craven stupidity”— and traced the consequences of the Russian wildfires in 2010, illustrating how agroecological science, indigenous communities, and social movements advancing food sovereignty are building powerful responses. Emily Schwing (Veggielution), Fernando Fernandez Leiva (La Mesa Verde), Paola Felix (Environmental Studies ‘22), and moderator Chris Bacon offered examples of community-based food justice responses to COVID and other challenges and responses from their perspectives as activists and researchers for local food justice. This event online and in-person drew over 110 participants, interested in taking the next steps in developing food justice. The Initiative co-sponsored this event with SCU’s Center for Arts and Humanities, and the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education’s Bannan Forum.

You can read more about this event on the Center for Arts and Humanities website.

The 2022 American Association of Geographers annual meeting was held online from Friday, Feb. 25 – Tuesday, March 1, and featured more than 4,500 presentations, posters, workshops, and field trips by leading scholars, experts, and researchers. Members of the Agroecology, Climate Resilience, and Food Justice (ACRAF) Lab presented their research on student food security and basic needs at SCU, local food justice responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and diversification of smallholder farmers in Nicaragua. All posters are included at the bottom of this post.

Brooke Rose (Environmental Studies, Sociology ‘22) presented her poster “A Regional Food Justice Response to Farmers and Families during COVID-19,” which analyzes the Farm Fresh Food Relief (FFFR) initiative, an emergency food response program to the COVID-19 pandemic and Northern California wildfires. A part of the conference that she enjoyed was engaging with new people: “Some of my favorite interactions at the conference were getting to talk with researchers, especially other undergraduate students. In the midst of all the environmental issues our world is facing, connecting with people with the same passion and desire to find solutions was impactful and made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself.” Ava Gleicher (Environmental Studies, Political Science ‘22) had a similar experience at the conference, saying “I was struck by the sheer quantity of geographers in attendance and the breadth of their research—I attended a session completely outside of my wheelhouse, and I greatly enjoyed hearing about how far and wide this community’s impact is.” Gleicher presented “Bridging Food Access and Food Justice Initiatives: A Pilot Study with a Home Gardening Program and Food Pantry,” showcasing research done in collaboration with Sacred Heart Community Service that integrates direct food distribution and urban gardening programs, which facilitates food sovereignty in the long-term, while also alleviating immediate hunger.

Posters:

A Regional Food Justice Response to Farmers and Families during COVID-19

Description: Despite being one of the wealthiest regions in the U.S., the Bay Area is home to hundreds of thousands of people who experience food insecurity and lack access to healthy food. Like other indicators of health, there are troubling racial and economic disparities in healthy food access, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, our project partner Fresh Approach and other non-profit organizations secured USDA contracts to develop an alternative model to the conventional approach of large distributors and food banks.

Bridging Food Access and Food Justice Initiatives: A Pilot Study with a Home Gardening Program and Food Pantry 

Description: Direct food distribution may alleviate community members’ immediate food insecurity, but it ignores—and even directly contradicts—community members’ deeper desire for food sovereignty, in which they may produce, distribute, and consume culturally-relevant and healthy food. This community-based research project aims to integrate direct food distribution and urban gardening programs to improve the sustainability of emergency food assistance, creating a system that facilitates food sovereignty long-term, while alleviating immediate hunger.

Characterizing the Impacts and Initial Institutional Responses to Hurricanes Eta and Iota in Nicaragua and Central America

Description: Within just two weeks, Central America endured two late-season Category 4 hurricanes. On November 3rd, 2020, Hurricane Eta made landfall along Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean coast. On the 17th of the same month, Hurricane Iota brought further devastation, landing a mere 15 miles further south than Eta. This poster presents a spatial analysis of the intensity and movement of both hurricanes across Nicaragua. We will share a preliminary analysis of vulnerability and impacts focusing on crop devastation and landslides in northern and central Nicaragua.

A Student Assessment of Food Security and Sovereignty as Universities Respond to COVID-19

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly exacerbated student food insecurity on college campuses, and campus food pantries have experienced difficulties meeting demand. These challenges are heightened by persistent patterns of racial and economic disparities among students and by social stigmas that limit discussions of potential responses. Utilizing a survey with over 550 participants conducted in fall 2020, the team studied the scope of food insecurity at SCU.

Food justice is “the right of communities everywhere to produce, process, distribute, access, and eat good food regardless of race, class, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, religion, or community.” This is not the reality in San Jose where thousands of residents suffer from food insecurity; they lack access to the food they need to lead an active, healthy life. The likelihood that a family may experience food insecurity is exacerbated by particular demographics: “low-income households, those with children headed by a single woman, and those headed by people identifying as Black and/or Hispanic” are more likely to experience food insecurity. Even in “wealthy” or “developed” neighborhoods, food insecurity is still prevalent. In Silicon Valley, where technology companies boast profits in the billions, “demand for free groceries has quadrupled” during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Environmental Justice and Common Good Initiative’s food justice program lead, Professor Chris Bacon (Environmenmental Studies and Science), is working collaboratively with Sacred Heart Community Services (SHCS) and to facilitate food justice and combat food insecurity. SHCS is the county’s lead provider of essential services, including emergency food assistance. And in 2021, SHCS served food to more than 25,000 people. SHCS also encompasses the La Mesa Verde Urban Gardening Program (LMV) which was founded in 2009 and currently serves nearly 200 San Jose residents. LMV provides community members with the tools and community resources they need to establish and grow their own organic gardens each year. Together, these entities will embark on an 18-month collaborative project funded by a $50,000 CalEPA Environmental Justice Small Grants Award. SHCS is the lead agency for this grant, and SCU will receive a $15,000 subaward. This project will facilitate food justice in the South Bay by employing research-based agroecology techniques to reduce food waste, produce compost, and improve the sustainability of emergency food assistance programs. Chris Bacon and a team of student researchers, including Ava Gleicher, Brooke Rose, and others, will aid in developing and implementing a community-based food justice approach. Together they will craft materials for five community-oriented educational workshops, facilitate leadership development opportunities for backyard gardeners and pantry volunteers, and create a replicable resource guide available to food pantries and urban gardeners so that they may use and adapt this food justice approach. This project will culminate in a Composting Distribution Day where key policy stakeholders, City Council Officials, and community members will be invited to celebrate the work accomplished and be encouraged to support county-wide efforts to build a nourishing, equitable, environmentally-sound, and community-oriented food system. This initiative will engage members of Bacon’s research assistant team and students from his ESS Capstone section.

Click here to learn more about the work ACRAF has done with SHCS and LMV.

Chris Bacon (Principal Investigator) and SCU economist Bill Sundstrom recently received a National Science Foundation grant for $285,722 to study how small-scale farmers and communities in Nicaragua can develop environmental and economic resilience.  

Two farmers in front on their home garden with fruit trees, forest and coffee in the background (Photo: PRODECOOP)

Nicaraguan farmers face droughts, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, crop diseases, food and agricultural price changes, Covid 19, and ongoing poverty. The research focuses on assessing crop diversification as a strategy to mitigate risk and build resilience by decreasing dependence upon a single commodity, increasing incomes, and using agroecology to manage biodiverse farms and improve harvests.

This participatory research with farmers will assess the impacts of new approaches to diversification on disaster risk, livelihood capabilities, food security, diet diversity, gender equity, water security, and food sovereignty.

Undergraduate research assistants will participate in data collection, analysis, and writing. 

We recently learned that Professor Eduardo López Herrera, partner and mentor of Santa Clara University’s  Agroecology, Climate Resilience and Food Justice Lab faculty, staff, and students, passed away on October 23, 2021 in his native city of Estelí. Msc. Eduardo was president of the Nicaraguan Social Development Association (ASDENIC), an organization that has worked on knowledge management and local development in northern Nicaragua for more than 25 years and a community-based partner with us since its inception in 2001.  

We extend our sincere condolences to Professor Eduardo López Herrera’s family, and his second family at ASDENIC.  Professor López Herrera was also a professor of sociology and history at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), and the recipient of several prestigious awards for his service. 

Thank you, Eduardo, for all the ways that you helped us collaborate with communities in northern Nicaragua and bridge our own academic disciplinary divides, as together we have organized workshops, organized international agroecology short courses, and conducted farmer surveys. Collectively and through our work with ASDENIC and many cooperative and community leaders, we have worked together to analyze how smallholder farmers and local communities are adapting to climate change and other hazards, to explain the links between food and water security, advance agroecology to address food insecurity, adapt to climate change and other hazards, and contribute to efforts to create a nationally recognized protected area in the Canta Gallo region.

Your legacy of dedicated work, values ​​in action, principles based on an example of an open heart will inspire our ongoing collaborations and continued work.