As engineers of a sustainable, equitable food system, The Common Market has impact on various levels, which the fellow will map and analyze. Economic: visualizing the geography of sales and purchases correlated to income and poverty tracts and understanding the regional scope of foodsheds created by The Common Market. Food security: displaying the geographic reach and sales depth of our food distribution, particularly with correlations to low-income, food insecure, or communities of color. Additionally, since The Common Market strives to serve good food in the institutions where low-income people work or attend school, analyzing the “target customers” we serve compared to the ranges which exist, for example the schools participating in Farm to School programs. Finally, agricultural sustainability: the fellow will map our producers’ locations and sizes and correlate this to regional land uses, in order to determine The Common Market’s impact on reversing commercial development trends.
We catalogue significant amounts of data daily on our sales and purchases, categorizing product transactions from the customer or to the farmer with addresses. On the customer side, this data is further broken down into the customer type, including hospitals, public schools, private schools, retailers, etc., which allows us to narrow in on “target customers.” This dataset exists over the past three years at least. This data will be used to map the foodshed, sales, purchasing depth, and economic impacts of The Common Market.
On the producer side, we collect data on the acreage supported by each producer we buy from.
Additional data sets that will be utilized by the fellow include:
We expect to receive maps in six sets: the three levels of impact (regional economy, food security, agricultural sustainability) across the two geographies (Mid-Atlantic and Georgia). The fellow should be prepared utilize various visualization techniques such as displaying though dot color or size, polygon color gradients, line density, and heat maps. Because each of the three levels has both a visualization component of our current reach and an analysis component of our impact compared to the need, fellows may need to produce more than one map in each set. While a formal report is not necessary, accompanying descriptions with analysis and statistics for each map will assist us in utilizing and sharing the results. Maps should be of publishing quality. Interactive webs maps would be a welcome addition/ alternative, though we do not require it.
We will use the maps and resulting analysis to visualize and measure the impact of our work compared to the mission. Moving into new geographies, it is essential for us to understand the successes and shortcoming of our model, so that we know which components to hone in on and which to re-strategize. Our theory of change is focused on institutional food distribution. We are particularly curious to see if within this theory of change our geographic and demographic reach is meeting the needs of farming and urban communities: how are we preventing land loss, reversing the trends of urban food insecurity in low-income and communities of color, and stimulating rural communities? Where are we falling short? We will also use the maps to communicate our growth potential with funders as well as the success of our current work.
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