Methyl iodide, once promoted as a suitable alternative to methyl bromide for soil fumigation in strawberry systems, was withdrawn from the market in 2012 after a contentious regulatory battle that revolved around its high toxicity. At the time of its withdrawal, Arysta LifeScience, the maker of the chemical, claimed that it was no longer economically viable. In this study, I investigated what made the chemical nonviable, with a specific focus on growers’ nonadoption of it. Interviews with strawberry growers in the four top California strawberry-growing counties revealed that growers’ decisions not to use it were primarily related to public disapproval, although the continued availability of methyl bromide and other fumigants played a contributing role by making adoption less urgent. The study results suggest that policies in place during the methyl bromide phaseout did not strongly encourage the development and extension of less toxic alternatives, which undermined the strawberry industry's position.

A major collaborative project launched in 2017 to accelerate the development of disease-resistant strawberry cultivars is responding urgently to two developments: increasing restrictions on fumigant use and the appearance of two novel pathogens not evidently manageable with allowed fumigants. As part of that project, I sought to understand the factors that guide growers' cultivar choice and assess their willingness to choose a pathogen-resistant cultivar to reduce or potentially replace fumigation. From a survey completed by 33 strawberry growers and in-depth interviews with 20 growers, I found that most growers prioritize yield in choosing cultivars, despite the industrywide problem with low prices. Few growers said they would be willing to substitute disease-resistant cultivars for fumigation without fail-safe disease control methods. Many growers, even those with existing organic programs, would opt for soilless systems in a tighter regulatory environment. This study thus suggests that disease resistance breeding must be coupled with support for other disease management techniques, and the economic situation that makes growers feel that they cannot forgo yield also needs attention.

Focusing on various sites of an international farmer exchange program, this research examines the geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural relevance of Northern-based alternative food networks in the context of a less developed country, specifically Peru. In theory, alternative food networks (AFNs) revalorize small-scale farmers, rebuild local food systems, and strengthen ties between consumers and producers. Efforts to promote AFNs and scholarship exploring these efforts are largely confined to the global North, despite the common challenges facing small-scale farmers in both more and less developed countries. In an attempt to bridge the scholastic and geographic gap between North and South, this dissertation examines AFNs from a global perspective, focusing on the mechanisms best suited to facilitating the diffusion of ideas and practices associated with AFNs, and revealing how initiatives like farmers’ markets and community gardens may serve similar functions in diverse settings.

This research promotes the internationalization of AFNs in three distinct case studies, each corresponding to a separate chapter. The first case study, based on research conducted with Peruvian and Ecuadorian exchange participants in the U.S, explores perceptions of transferability regarding organic farming systems. I argue that the most valuable elements of this international agricultural exchange reside not with the diffusion of agricultural innovations, but with how cross-cultural experiential learning promotes critical reflection on place-appropriate production. In the second case study, I argue that an organic farmers’ market in Lima, Peru, despite replicating many of the troubling exclusionary characteristics of similar markets in the U.S., demonstrates the potential to improve rural livelihoods while raising consumer awareness about the benefits of organic agriculture. Here I suggest that expanding the scope of analysis to encompass the global South requires reconceptualizing the workings and implications of AFNs in a global context. In the third and final case study I argue that three key factors have influenced the emergence of what I refer to as “organic subjects” in a community garden (CG) in rural Northern Peru: increased conventional farming practices; the influence of a garden organizer as the agent of an organic ideology; and the material practices associated with participating in the garden. The actions taken by the women of the Club de Madres that created this garden reinforce the idea that CGs produce subjects, and that such subjects may well be oriented towards an agenda of agrarian change that promotes environmental awareness and ecological farming practices, key elements of emerging alternative food networks in the global North and South. As the three case studies together show, examining AFNs in a Southern context presents opportunities to “theorize back” to the North to consider the historical contexts from which AFNs have emerged; how so-called “developing world issues” of poverty and inequality can be transformed into globally relevant issues; and how AFNs North and South can address global and increasingly acute issues like food insecurity and food justice.

Quite unlike other metaphors, the food desert has inspired millions of dollars of projects and resulted in thousands of news articles. A staggering amount of ink has been spilled to describe it, study it, and criticize it. It has been mapped and quantified. Supermarkets, urban gardens, and farmers’ markets have been built in its name. It has infiltrated the many ways to conceptualize food inequalities, replacing some and overshadowing others. The relative newness of the metaphor – having only recently emerged in the 1990s – adds to the wonder regarding its swift rise to fame.

“Genealogies of the Food Desert” takes on this curious rise to prominence by tracing how the metaphor became so prolific and materially consequential. Through a discourse and cultural analysis, I excavate the genealogies of the food desert metaphor, from its utterance by residents and community organizers in Glasgow, Scotland to its refracting through broader UK supermarket regeneration schemes, and its eventual journey into US policy through the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and food justice nonprofit building in North Denver. Analytically, I chart the food desert’s transformation from metaphor to discourse, from discourse to policy mechanism, to how the metaphor becomes materially consequential, drawing out the practices and conditions of possibility that fostered semantic and discursive shifts and material mobilizations. Doing so, I stay with the trouble of the food desert metaphor to understand where it comes from, how it reflects and inherits specific worldviews, values, and histories as it emerges and proliferates. More than just an investigation into metaphor, these genealogies demonstrate how metaphors must account for their own histories and must face their own constructions, even if they are made and remade, fashioned and refashioned as they travel geographically, temporally, or politically. Ultimately, this means that the onus is not on metaphors to be better, but rather that the burden is on us – academics, policymakers, non-profit leaders, community organizers – to refuse the spooky metaphors that trick or treat for attention and citations, and to create instead metaphors that can hold the weight of envisioning and enacting more just, equitable, and joy-filled futures.