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FormalPara Inclusion vs. Creation: A Farmers Market Struggle Toward Equity AuthorGroup Author AuthorName Chloe Green

As a dietetics and community and environmental sociology student, I didn’t expect that I would end up doing research in the planning department. Just when I was beginning to lose hope that I would find a position to research healthy food access, Dr. Alfonso Morales reached out, and I knew right then that I had found my home: the University of Wisconsin-Madison Kaufman Lab for the Study and Design of Food Systems and Marketplaces.

The Kaufman Lab introduced me to farmers markets as a placemaking space. I had been an avid market goer since middle school; I loved walking around and tasting new foods that I had never heard of and seeing colors of produce that I had never dreamed of. I enjoyed going back to the same vendor and having them recognize me and telling me stories and recipes for the new ingredient I would bring home. However, my thinking was limited to this individual relationship – a relationship between a middle class, white woman from West Los Angeles and her organic produce from the farmers market. The Kaufman Lab introduced me to so many more relationships between market staff, vendors, and their respective families and communities that make each market its own unique space. Markets are so much more than a place to buy groceries; farmers markets are a space to be in a moment with your community.

Markets should be a space that does this for all communities alike, for people of any color or kin. In the current times it is often perceived that farmers markets are reserved for people who look a certain way and receive a certain pay – whether this be due to the gentrification or the high costs of locally crafted kombucha – this imagery that includes certain groups of people leads to inherent feelings of exclusion for others. At the Kaufman Lab I worked alongside many markets and organizations developing programs to be more inclusive, but as with much discrimination and structural and systemic racism in our world, decades of harm cannot be mended in a day.

Many markets across the country now accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), and other economic incentive programs. A number of markets also provide a matching program where people who use one of the aforementioned benefits can receive double (or triple) the amount of money to use at the market to increase how much produce they can buy.

When I would present my research, market staff and organizations were often disappointed that I had not found a precise answer as to how to make markets more inclusive. As I continued to think about these inquiries, I only developed more questions – one of which is whether existing markets should even work to be more inclusive, or if instead new markets should be created that are niche to their community – such as the Fondy Farmers Market in Milwaukee. There, a patron told me that she continues to shop at the market because it is where her community is: where she can shop with and buy from people who look and act like she does. Rather than striving for inclusivity in this space and the world, I think people need to focus more on embracing our differences to make a community stronger. As the only undergraduate student to be recognized as a Jerome L. Kaufman Fellow, a 26th Class Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow, and a current nutrition policy professional in Washington, DC, I believe that this process begins with a prioritization of the thoughts and ideas of people who are closest to the problems we are trying to solve, and we might just need to create a new market system with more stable roots in equity.

1 Introduction

The authors acknowledge Maggie Tomashek for her editorial assistance.

Ethics are the study of conduct, particularly the study of the conflict of ends, interests, and values. Ethical standards in planning are related to position and problem. Howe and Kaufman show this relativity of perspective through the analyses of interaction in situations planners might be part of. Such a stance is commonly labeled “interactionist” and follows from the applied philosophy of American pragmatists (Morales 1998). This interactionist analysis of contextual ethics applies to urban farmers who necessarily engage with social, economic, and political values in the process of achieving their goals. While the process of urban agriculture (UA) relates to multiple values, UA practitioners also pursue complex goals (outcomes) represented by social, economic, or environmental goals (we can call these “Wicked Opportunities” Morales 2021). Considering such opportunities illustrates how means and ends in reciprocal and iterative relationship constitute the “meat and potatoes” of UA ethics. Indeed, we should point out that Kaufman never separated the question of applied ethics from strategic planning, thinking regionally, or teaching, those among the subjects he held important (Howe and Kaufman 1980; Kaufman 1980, 1987, 1993). In this introduction and through the section chapters we show the important relationships he comprehended between geographic scale, people, and organizational activities and goals.

The definition of an urban area relates largely to the area’s total population and population density. So, when we consider how UA differs from agriculture generally, one difference emerges above all else: people. As we seek to differentiate UA from agriculture as it is commonly understood (or what we may for the moment call rural agriculture) we see that the proximity of large numbers of people is a key feature. The sheer number and density of people in a city represent both practical opportunities and challenges for UA. For this reason, the increased intensity, number, and types of interpersonal interactions frame ethical considerations of UA.

Of course, personal interaction in rural agriculture is important, just as numerous other non-social processes are important to consider within UA. However, among the many ethical considerations of UA (ecological, economic, etc.), we view social interactions as the most pressing ethical consideration for UA. We argue this perspective because many other ethical considerations can be approached beginning with how people treat each other. In addition, a focus on social interaction is central because neglecting to consider the ethics of social interaction has been a stumbling block for many UA endeavors. While focusing on the social interactionist ethic might not seem as pressing as the physical agricultural processes or outcomes, we argue that mutually agreeable and beneficial ethical considerations will be at the heart of successful projects, especially with regard the prospects for “minoritized” groups, who Kaufman wholeheartedly embraced and supported. Attention to social interaction will shape the inclusive and positive attitudes and actions that UA projects create.

What this framework suggests is that ethical UA is not limited to material results such as harvests, equipment, or growing medium. Abstractly speaking, the “growing medium” of social interaction represents the soils in which individual and collective life are rooted. Developing human capacities and relationships is just as important as the actual practice of agriculture. In short, like most other human activities, what we observe in UA processes can be more important than what we observe in UA outcomes. However, we do not want to focus only on the “measurable” aspects of a certain activity. We want to emphasize a process approach to practice that reminds us that new and unanticipated outcomes are likely to arise as we engage with UA.

Think of how this social-interactionist approach informs UA through the practical example of the opportunities and challenges in UA. The challenges of UA, for example, can include an increased number of interpersonal interactions required for a range of purposes such, as a ‘buy-in’ from neighbors adjacent to a farm, or increasingly complex relationships needed for permitting or partnership development (Covert and Morales 2014; Meenar et al. 2017). Economic benefits could include new business formation and human capital formation – in the form of self-management skills and job experience. Further, we can expect substantial non-economic benefits, for instance, community building in implementing school or community gardens, and the resulting organizational experience people can take to other activities (on the organizational experience learned in volunteer activities and translated to other activities, see Morales (2009); for an extensive list of non-economic benefits that can apply see Morales et al. (1995)). From another perspective, these challenges and benefits can also be viewed as steps within a process of community building, revealing that the real rewards of UA may be the ripe opportunities for personal growth through relationship development associated with UA. Opportunities for individual and community growth remind us that UA is not simply a question of food systems, but an opportunity to understand and redefine the social dynamics that are central to urban systems. Indeed, we must distinguish and differentiate in order to comprehend these opportunities (Morales 2020).

Urban agriculture represents a practical manifestation of the ethical values individuals, groups, and organizations seek to advance in a broader urban system. As a tool often utilized in response to a scarcity of other opportunities, UA provides practitioners with constructive recourse to (re)define the reality of their city. UA is an idea and practice, which contradicts the common perception of what is urban and how or where agriculture is usually practiced. By intersecting these ideas and actions, practitioners challenge each system (urban and agriculture) by combining them into one term (urban agriculture). Through this process they encourage the reimagination of how food systems interact with cities. A certain appeal of UA stems from the real, tangible impact that the exercise of the imagination produces. However, while this optimism is critical to foster action, it should not mask the real challenge that is implied by the transformation which requires changing habits, values, and expectations related to these two vast systems.

Kaufman and Howe illustrate that both means (process) and ends (outcomes) are ethical considerations for planners (Howe and Kaufman 1979). While the tangible outcome of UA is a galvanizing force for practitioners, ultimately many view UA as an opportunity to have a practical effect on larger social, economic, and political structures (Morales and Mukherji 2010). This means/ends framework is valuable for UA practitioners who, like urban planners, have real influence on these larger structures they often set out to transform. In many respects, UA is unique from many other urban processes in that grassroots practitioners (rather than planners or developers) largely shape spaces that are actually or perceivably part of the public domain. Given their increased potential for significant, direct impact on urban spaces and this influence on broader social systems, the ethical considerations of urban planners described by Howe and Kaufman are uniquely applicable to UA practitioners.

Understanding how social systems are organized is imperative for ethical consideration of UA practice because practitioners will be participants in the ongoing evolution of these social systems (Morales and He 2022). Revealing, embedding, and articulating ethical considerations ensures that the potential for change represented by UA results in positive and beneficial transformation, while seeking to avoid mistakes of the past. We deepen our understanding of processes and goals through ethics-in-action. UA practitioners can approach their work in a constructive process informed by their particular experiences in tandem with insight derived from an understanding of broader social structures. Howe and Kaufman’s ethical framework of means and ends is a useful and practical approach for practitioners given the tendency for ethical ends (or outcomes, economic or otherwise) to preempt considerations for ethical means or processes. Using this framework, we suggest three key ideas for an ethical interactionist framework: place-based historical perspectives, bridging barriers within cities and regions, and an iterative, nested approach to reimagining healthy socio-ecological systems. Stated another way, we illustrate how ethics shapes our perception of the past, present, and future of UA systems.

2 Historical Framework

Historical contextualization is essential for ethical UA for two overarching reasons. The first relates to the fraught histories of urban and agricultural processes in the US. Knowing these histories is important to both avoid repeating the same mistakes of history and to better work with a sense of constructive compassion. This approach recognizes the depth of generational trauma inherited by the country as a whole, but born largely by the descendants of those who have endured this trauma (often referred to as ‘trauma informed’).

Second, learning from the specific successes and failures of UA also has ethical implications, by honoring those who come before us. Furthermore, repeating their mistakes or failing to incorporate their innovations has consequences for those engaged with UA today. UA is unavoidably a demanding endeavor. To embark on this undertaking all for naught can be enough to discourage UA practice in future, undermining the long-term viability of a movement. This can ultimately reduce the movement’s inclusivity, as those with means are more capable of surmounting years of ineffective practices, while those who have been marginalized can be set back years in their own individual professional and personal endeavors by projects that unnecessarily lead to a dead-end. Avoiding the mistakes of the past makes the present efforts more effective and more inclusive.

The critique of the term “food desert” and the underlying logic is documented (Roubal and Morales 2016). This critique suggests a need for a more nuanced understanding of localized food systems to give a more complete understanding of food access served by outlets other than supermarkets, such as farmers markets. Moreover, it also reveals the role of supermarkets in decreasing food access, whether through supermarket redlining or by centralizing food purchasing in an area, thereby undermining local businesses. Finally, this reminds us that definitions matter. Definitions shape agenda setting and goals. Definitions also undergird narratives that shape how communities are perceived and how actionable decisions are made.

In response, UA practitioners must understand the broader history of urban places and agricultural processes. Both are consequences of national historical processes and place specific contexts. A historical awareness plays an important role in acknowledging the previous historic struggles against unjust urban and/or agricultural processes. This awareness can address the cycle of marginalization of people and distrust created within communities.

Given the history of racial segregation of American cities, along with the oppression and exploitation of people of color in agriculture from slavery to immigrant farmworkers today, UA couples two inherently fraught ideas (urban and agriculture) when intersected with race. Thus, ethical considerations of UA must grapple with these histories in an honest and restorative process.

While the displacement of indigenous peoples is pertinent in any place-based ethical consideration in the US (and arguably any place), it is of particular relevance to UA, as the sites of many US cities were once the sites of major population and food production sites for Native peoples. Examples of such places include the Salmon Harvests in the Puget Sound (Cantzler and Huynh 2016), or the wild rice harvests in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley (Gurda 2018).

The racialized history of slavery (Elliot and Hughes 2019) and the dispossession of land (see the work of law professor Thomas Mitchell) must be remembered in the context of UA, as it necessarily shapes problematic identity formation and the reconstruction of a place. The generational trauma that is associated with agriculture for African Americans and perpetuation of exploitation through share cropping are necessary considerations in developing UA practices that recognize the need for generational healing. Exploitation of immigrant, largely Latino, migrant workers in farm fields in more recent history creates difficult relationships with agriculture for migrant farm workers and their descendants. Though the context is different, it is important to acknowledge and work through the weight of the trauma associated with agriculture for people who have been exploited, or whose ancestors have been enslaved or exploited in agriculture. Localized histories are critical to examine, as histories associated with agriculture may have diverging generational traumas such as the loss of farmland by Japanese Americans in Southern California when they were interned during World War II.

Agricultural systems of ideas and behavior may help heal wounds for those with generational trauma associated with agriculture, and it can also provide a generational healing space for those displaced from ancestral agricultural practice (Bernado 2017). This potential for healing from a variety of generational traumas emphasizes the importance of the ethical consideration of UA because UA promises a divergent future: renewed trauma or healing. This emphasis on the historical framing is, in fact, naming a process required for ethical UA. While widely celebrated as inherently good, this points to the fact that UA, like everything, must be imbued with ethical considerations informed by history to ensure that it has the desired effect of healing. Moreover, recognizing the need for healing advances the hope of achieving this result, avoiding repetition of agricultural trauma.

The history of urban planning must also be investigated to develop an ethical framework for UA. We must remind ourselves that UA relates to urban systems just as it relates to food systems. Urban planning interventions have had a significant influence on all urban processes, including UA. Critical analysis of the history of urban planning in the US requires an understanding of the federal government’s role in segregating American cities with the assistance of real estate interests (including banks) through the process commonly known as redlining (Jackson 1985). This history has a profound effect on the layout of urban communities across the US today. For example, areas that have historically experienced disinvestment, often paving the way for urban farms, did not occur naturally but instead were shaped by federal policy (see historical chapters for urban food systems in Dawson and Morales 2016).

A clear knowledge of the history of the Federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), developed through New Deal policies, is important in understanding that segregation and current racial inequality are not natural or inevitable, but instead intentionally created through policy (Bonilla-Silva 2010). This includes the history of FHA loans that were made available to primarily white families (Brahinsky 2011), a process which played a key role in their wealth development (Barraclough 2009). Black families and Black communities, on the other hand, were hindered in their ability to accrue wealth because they were excluded from FHA lending (Lipsitz 2011). These actions taken at the federal level in the 1930s, nearly a century ago, along with localized policies such as racial housing covenants, have helped produce the gross inequalities of income and wealth across our nation’s urban areas today.

The work of Griffin et al. (2024) in this section illustrates the importance of historical awareness by describing food justice work in Buffalo’s African American community over the past century. Their chapter reveals why the institutional knowledge of both process and outcome are important to bear in mind when observing lessons from the past. The authors illustrate how these lessons can help reveal what is possible, despite the challenges of the current industrial food system. The numerous cumulative cooperative efforts throughout Buffalo’s history also makes clear that even when an institution is no longer viable, its contribution to community-based knowledge does not cease if subsequent efforts can glean the lessons learned through historical awareness. This means allowing learning from the past to inform emergent systems and practices.

The history of food justice in the Albany, Georgia, region described by Hall et al. (2024) demonstrates the intersection of agriculture and the fight for civil rights. White landowners displaced Black farmers who supported the civil rights movement. This history also reveals the particular racial discrimination that was perpetuated in the post-civil rights era food system, when Black farmers were denied access to emergency loans. This place-specific history demonstrates the numerous layers of discrimination throughout our nation’s history of agriculture, the importance of localized historical knowledge, and the importance of being cognizant of this history in UA practice today. Again, how such historical knowledge informs contemporary UA systems and practices is a matter of seeing both the ends sought, and the organizational means available to participants.

Housing policy has segregated cities. More recent federal government interventions such as Urban Renewal, which occurred in tandem with the development of the interstate system, primarily displaced communities of color. This displacement came only decades after HOLC’s actions, and suburban housing covenants made living outside of these very same communities impossible. Current neoliberal urban planning policies continue to displace low-income communities of color through policies such as the HOPE VI program, which has led to the demolition of the public housing projects created during urban renewal. This combined history illustrates how urban planning decisions over the course of the past century have created a series of ongoing waves of displacement, underfunding, and unnecessary burden that shape our nation’s cities today. In this section, Coen et al. show the potential to challenge this neoliberal approach by using UA as a means for community building (NYC) and resourcing communities in and beyond public housing (Denver). For this reason, ethical UA requires a clear understanding of the racist urban planning policies that have disinvested in communities of color, leading to disproportionate wealth accrual in white communities (Brahinsky 2011).

3 Bridging Barriers

Having rehearsed some history, we recognize that food offers a unique ability to unite. Ethical implications for UA imply that practitioners should utilize the opportunity it provides to address existing divisions within communities. Notably, most US cities are defined by segregation that often follows from urban planning policies. UA offers a rare opportunity to meaningfully challenge this status quo.

However, divisions within communities are not limited to racial segregation. Generational divides across communities illustrate the need for intergenerational engagement in food systems. Sincere community engagement can likely find long-time food activists who have extensive agricultural experience in hidden backyard gardens. Of course, culinary skills and unique recipes are in every community. Building relationships to support the continuation of these skills and recipes can yield a bounty much greater than the harvest from the well-tended backyard garden or meal from the home kitchen. Intergenerational community building can provide new energy to a community, while also helping people learn lessons from the successes and challenges of the past. By building on prior work of these legacies, this approach is not entirely different from sustainable farming practices themselves. No-till is an example of such practices which seeks to build from the rich web of life in the soil rather than tearing up these delicate fibers of life to start from scratch.

Urban and rural divides are another pronounced feature of US cities that UA can address. UA offers the means to draw linkages between food producers across regions as well as linking urban consumers to rural producers. This requires thinking of food systems at a regional level and not working in isolation within urban communities.

While this may seem to contradict the idea of urban agriculture, regional thinking is, in fact, central to urban planning. Urban planning scholars like Jerry Kaufman point to the need for regional planning to address a variety of urban problems from housing to transportation. Projects that focus on food access in urban communities based on food production in the city alone miss opportunities to not only build partnerships with rural producers for the sake of food systems, but also miss opportunities to build alliances and solidarity with people across a region.

What role do food systems play in restoring the commons? Alliances across urban and rural divides can set the stage for transformation beyond the local food system. Given that the geographic divides correlate with political divides, local food systems may offer a prism to rebuild relationships. Because of their critical role in our everyday lives and the degree to which they require complex actions and processes, food systems may provide a firm foundation to begin (or continue) to build these bridges. It is important to consider the ways in which policies at both the local, state, and national levels shape the landscape in which we work. The divisive nature of our socio-political environment plays an important role in perpetuating poverty and dominant food systems that affects the vibrancy of food systems within both urban and rural communities alike.

These various examples illustrate that ethical food system work requires not only working towards an ‘end’ such as food access, but also suggest the need to intentionally consider the role of community, alliance, and solidarity building through the vehicle (or process) of UA. The process of community building may reap even greater rewards than those associated with the original goals identified for the particular project.

Hall et al. demonstrate the opportunity for regional food system planning to address both fresh food access in the City of Albany as well as improving economic opportunities for rural farmers surrounding Albany. In this case study, Hall et al. also note that the civil rights movement in Albany involved various age groups, which contrasted from other civil rights groups in which most of the activists were young. Likewise, UA groups today risk losing a wealth of experience by failing to incorporate diverse age groups. Indeed, when engaging the means/ends thinking like Kaufman and Howe, we need to remember that people will always transmit knowledge, our desire is that the knowledge they transmit helps achieve many prosocial goals.

4 Nested Approach to Reimagining Healthy Socio-ecological Systems

How do we decide what a sustainable future should look like? To consider sustainability within an interactionist framework, it is important to consider how people will interact with sustainable futures (across demographic categories). In other words, if a process supports the textbook environmental, economic, and social sustainability goals but fails to be convenient, preferable or usable, its adoption rate may be minimized.

Part of the planning process for sustainable futures should consider those who will inhabit this future we seek to form in a sustainable fashion. This implies that children and teens should be engaged in shaping the plans for sustainable futures. Working with young people to create the future is a process of identifying systems the next generation is more likely to utilize and steward. We see evidence of this in the article below by Griffin et al., in which the Black Student Union members guided their work based on listening to the needs of young people.

It is also critical to have a measured approach that understands how much time food system change requires. Food system work often benefits from an incremental approach towards implementation, while still engaging in big-picture, comprehensive planning. In other words, start small but plan big. UA practice and implementation requires distinct skills, but skill development requires time to develop through practice with appropriate challenges. Inclusive food systems require a patient approach to offer the requisite time for individuals to develop the skills to be active participants in food system transformation. This patient work of skill development illustrates another reason why working with young people is common in food system work. To build a program that involves young adults, for example, a patient approach might involve working with youth who will be young adults in five or even 10 years. This approach requires a long-term commitment to community engagement.

A long-term approach towards skill development creates a vested interest in the program to work towards retention of skilled participants and entire cohorts, just as young people develop a sense of belonging through their practical skill development. This can help to challenge the power dynamics of programming—in which participants are commodified as metrics—to one in which they are valued for their individual skills, ability to contribute through their own personal growth, and as participants in a growing and evolving program. It also creates important challenges for programs, as they must adapt programming to ensure its relevance by continuing to challenge those who accumulate skills over the years. Additionally, adopting time horizons associated with producing food and supporting people over the life course helps us rethink time as we currently impose it: in terms of the fiscal year, the grant process, the school year, or business notions of time. To recapture time and locate it in processes that serve people is an important impulse of UA. The promise of long-term approaches serves to build relationships among participants, program staff, and the broader community (Morales 2020, 2021). Programs that seek transformation within communities should attempt to build in these positive challenges that will equally challenge leaders to grow along with participants in a responsive and exploratory approach. This could be described as an urgent patience that recognizes the need to plant seeds for the future today with willingness to see growth through its natural cycles.

That said, focusing on innovative programing development can also risk hopping from one innovation to another. Long-term transformation requires long-term commitment to projects, people, and organizations. The tendency towards innovation must be tempered by an aversion among funders to chase the shiny object or among organizations that might chase the money. An innovation-above-all-else mentality causes a contradictory approach to system change that undermines the actual implementation of new systems to do the necessary work of replacing outdated and unsustainable systems. Instead, new systems are discussed and piloted but often fail to fully take flight. This, in part, is why small, incremental work is necessary in the initial periods, so that big projects do not remain half implemented. Instead, small projects can build from success toward a larger vision, while building partnerships and identifying solutions that work towards long-term goals.

Food systems require an interconnected web of skills, people, businesses, and organizations that specialize in specific areas. Many existing structures do not encourage or reward collaboration. Funders and customers are often inclined toward the biggest, most well-known entity (be it an individual, business, or organization). This dynamic can be transformed by funders or customers who recognize that this preference often implicitly supports the most dominating entity, one that might actively work to undermine others doing similar, complementary work.

How can a web or system be created by just one entity? No matter the size or scope of such an entity, it inevitably will be one that is tenuous. “The bigger they come, the harder they fall.” Funders and customers should, instead, look toward collaborations. While material outcomes are important, so are the interactive, social processes. Effective and inclusive social structures that shape successful cooperation, such as collectives or cooperatives, should be viewed as ingredients in UA (a healthy, social interactive growing medium) with as much importance as the produce harvested, number of participants engaged, or profits generated. Thus, an interactionist perspective with an aim for long-term urban and food system change recognizes that systems that support positive and effective interaction are just as important as these material end results.

The contribution of UA to environmentally sustainable futures recognizes that food production and consumption is an essential component of human life. Bringing the processes associated with food to our cities not only reduces the distance between us and our food, and thereby addresses issues such as food miles, but also imbeds food production capacity into urban systems. This framework allows food producers to tap into the inevitable waste streams of cities and challenges the thinking of waste altogether. Along with questions regarding how much food a city can produce, this awareness can challenge us to ask questions like “what do cities, as systems, discard that could help to grow food?”

Both stormwater and food waste are challenging problems for our cities that have local consequences (such as water quality and landfill capacity) as well as global implications of climate change resilience. By incorporating agriculture into our cities, however, we can reframe these challenges into opportunities. Walsh describes stormwater as “the best type of problem, because solving it provides an opportunity to solve other problems such as the provision of water for human use” (Walsh et al. 2012). UA offers the opportunity to embrace stormwater, food waste and other challenges that falsely frame urban abundance as waste. The potential of UA reveals instead that rather than ‘waste,’ these byproducts of urban living are symptoms of structurally flawed systems. Our cities fail to repurpose the abundance as a part of a healthier, inclusive, cyclical system that UA proposes to (re)create. With this optimistic outlook we can constructively think of environmental sustainability through addition rather than subtraction, illustrating how our cities can think like planets (Alberti 2016).

Once again, partnerships are essential to this process. Composting, for example, requires food waste haulers (whether public or private sector) to work with a variety of different food processors, restaurants, retailers, and households (Suerth and Morales 2014). This also requires education to ensure food is properly sorted from trash. Gardeners, farmers, or other users of finished compost are another important partner in this process. They represent an important part of this system by providing a destination for the finished compost. Closing the loop of food waste also aids in the overall economic viability of food waste diversion by providing a market for finished compost. This illustrates how creating a new system through food waste composting requires a relatively seamless and symbiotic system of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of participants (in the case of municipal wide food waste diversion) with defined roles, an understanding of processes, and a mutual interest in both their own benefit from the system as well as in the functioning of the overall system.

In summary, from Kaufman’s prolific imagination and deep concern for people flowed important inspiration and insight about how to locate the idea of ethics in concrete practices. In this section, as in the book as a whole, authors here honor not only his memory, but what he would expect of us – to honor the efforts of those we work with and serve.