Abstract
Food hubs create a range of economic, social, and environmental impacts through a wide variety of activities and programs. Evaluation of these impacts is important; however, many hubs lack the capacity (including time, resources, knowledge, and expertise) to do effective, ongoing evaluation work. This lack of capacity is exacerbated by the difficul¬ties inherent in capturing the kinds of complex, multidimensional, context-specific impacts and outcomes that many of these businesses and organizations strive to achieve. This paper reports on a participatory research project designed to develop a resource to support food hub evaluation efforts. It presents highlights from the guide that was created and discusses associated insights regarding the tensions and opportunities of food hub evaluation. We argue that food hubs need to be engaging in evaluation efforts, even in the face of significant resource constraints, as a means of strengthening individual entities and the sector as a whole. These efforts must be carefully aligned with a hub’s stage of development and context-specific, multifunctional goals. They should also account for food hubs’ emergent, dynamic, and adaptive nature. To that end, participatory evaluation methodologies that take a flexible, collaborative, action-oriented approach are especially relevant.
Highlights
Much has been written in recent years about the problematic nature of the conventional global food system
We present our research results organized into three main themes: (1) capacity considerations that food hubs should take into account when thinking about evaluation; (2) evaluation as a necessity for food hub success; and (3) the importance of going beyond basic financial metrics to capture more holistic stories about the multifunctional work that food hubs are doing and how that work is tied to the creation of more sustainable food systems
The motivation to conduct this project came from an understanding—based on previous research and conversations with relevant stakeholders—that evaluation presented a challenge for existing food hubs, and this perception was borne out by the research process
Summary
Much has been written in recent years about the problematic nature of the conventional global food system. A recent literature review by Berti & Mulligan (2016) discusses two broad approaches to food hub work: values-based agri-food supply chain management and sustainable food community development. By contrast, Berti & Mulligan’s (2016) sustainable community development model type is generally the domain of nonprofit organizations, and is more consistent with a definition of food hubs as “networks and intersections of grassroots, communitybased organisations and individuals that work together to build increasingly socially just, economically robust and ecologically sound food systems that connect farmers with consumers as directly as possible” A food hub survey conducted in Ontario was completed by 125 respondents (Blay-Palmer, Nelson, Mount & Nagy, 2018), again demonstrating the vibrancy of the sector in the North American context, and Rose (2017) suggests that, while in Australia food hubs are currently less prevalent, there is growing interest in adapting and adopting the model as part of growing that country’s local food movement
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