California has a central role in U.S. and global dairy: it leads the U.S. in dairy production and milk is the state’s largest-revenue agricultural commodity. Changes in the structure and geography of dairy farming in California may be indicative of changes elsewhere. California’s position at the leading edge of the large-scale intensification of dairy production was achieved during a relatively short history. Over the last seventy years, government regulations, research and development, technical innovation, and changes in market demand have encouraged increased herd size, specialization, and mechanization of dairy production in many places around the world, perhaps nowhere more profoundly than California. The climate, topography, and agricultural productivity of the state has created an exceptional setting for rapid growth of the dairy industry, but has also resulted in substantial air and water pollution and many environmental and resource concerns including contentious politics around land and water use. This research examines the spatial change of dairy production in California over the past four decades. I use county agricultural reports and USDA Census of Agriculture data to demonstrate, through a series of original maps and animations, the dramatic increase in production of milk in California and especially in the San Joaquin Valley, the rapid fall in number of farms, and the concurrent spatial redistribution of production within the state. These visualizations reveal illustrative spatial patterns and insights into rapid changes in the geography of dairy production within California. Based on these visualizations and analyses, I propose a framework for understanding the intersecting transformations seen in California and other major dairy producing states: regional concentration, industry consolidation, and farm-level intensification. In explaining how these processes are nested, overlapping, and multi-scalar, I offer an account of California’s past and current trajectory, while examining the applicability and implications of these findings for other dairy-producing regions into the future.

Water is an element that not only keeps humans alive but powers the world. Access, quality, and safety are all dimensions of power when it comes to water—where gender, class, income, geography, and race are often the determinants. Access to clean water and issues surrounding mining and hydroelectric projects, deforestation, and human rights violations are becoming an increasing threat many communities in the country of Honduras. Before and after the murder of Berta Caceres, environmentalists and community leaders have organized to prevent the privatization of water and lands, and bring awareness to the imminent threat that all of these extractive practices are posing on water and ecosystems, along with other environmental issues that are threatening communities in the Department of Atlántida and other areas across the country. Access to safe drinking water and rivers is essential for the survival of communities, particularly in regions where drought poses a significant and ongoing threat. This is especially true for many communities in Honduras, especially those located in the mountainous western highlands. These highland areas are part of the Central American Dry Corridor, which experiences severe drought conditions for most of the year. Currently, Honduras has a population of over 9 million people and sadly only about 60% of the population have access to drinking water. In this thesis I aim to understand how deforestation practices, mining, and hydroelectric projects affect water access and quality for residents in Atlántida, Honduras and how this mayaffect the region's water management and provision strategies.

There is growing recognition of the pressing need for food systems transformation towards resilience, particularly in the face of climate change and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Pacific Island territories offer valuable perspectives on food system transformation processes during COVID-19 due to their experience with increasing dependency on food imports, rising levels of non-infectious diseases, and the loss of indigenous foodways. Rapa Nui is a remote Pacific Island home to the Rapanui indigenous people, and a special territory of Chile. Rapa Nui isolated itself from the mainland for 2.5 years during the COVID-19 pandemic due to concerns about the effect of the pandemic on its remote population and limited local medical facilities. This research uses participatory approaches to document local knowledge around food system resilience in the agricultural sector in Rapa Nui during COVID-19 and provide recommendations for policymakers and donors to strengthen the local food system. I conducted 13 in-depth interviews with various food system stakeholders, revealing the adverse impact of the pandemic on food security, particularly in its early stages. However, I also observed a remarkable resilience, marked by a resurgence of indigenous Rapanui cultural practices, which played a pivotal role in sustaining food security. I conclude that Rapa Nui’s food system has undergone an accelerated transformation in the last decades characterized by a growing reliance on food imports and a shift towards less nutrient-dense food, resulting in reduced food system resilience. Globalization is identified as a dominant trend at the landscape level that was temporarily – but strongly – counterbalanced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This external shock favored the alignment of diverse forces within the food system guided by cultural revitalization, indicating conducive conditions for sustainable food system transformation. My interviews highlight the need for more coordination among food system stakeholders to address pressing challenges related to water availability, insects and diseases, food safety, dietary change, food access, climate change, and the preservation of traditional species of agricultural value. Based on this research, I recommend policymakers, donors, and other food system stakeholders to take advantage of this opportunity by investing in innovative, multi-stakeholder food system governance structures aligned with indigenous Pasifika cultural values, and by fostering overall food system robustness by increasing agrobiodiversity.

Despite an abundance of research on farmers markers and alternative food networks the literature lacks a focus on 1) farmers market managers and market organizations as key intermediaries within these networks; 2) the role of rules, regulations, and standards in shaping how farmers markets look, feel, and operate; 3) the mechanisms behind social embeddedness at farmers markets; and 4) how different actors within these networks (including market managers and market customers) define and understand these spaces. This dissertation draws widely from the literature on alternative food networks, agrifood standards and regulation, market making, and embeddedness in order to explore these questions. The findings challenge common assumptions about sustainability and embeddedness in alternative food networks and highlight the overlooked role of market intermediaries in shaping these spaces.

This three-article dissertation is structured as follows. The first chapter, published in Journal of Rural Studies, draws upon a novel dataset of 87 farmers market vendor regulatory documents in order to investigate the content of farmers market handbooks, including standards and regulations for vendors (which codify marketplace inclusions and exclusions), as well as the explicitly stated values and goals of farmers market organizations. The second chapter centers the perspectives of farmers market managers as active agents that shape the social, symbolic, and physical construction of alternative food systems. Drawing upon interviews with 30 farmers market managers, this paper interrogates the roles of market making, market intermediaries, and standards in shaping these spaces. Finally, the third chapter uses qualitative and quantitative analysis of a survey of over 1,500 farmers market customers in order to examine the behaviors, expectations, and values of farmers market customers.