Local Food Value Chain Coordination Resiliency

Scope of Work Research during this 24-month pilot would be focused broadly on development and publication of a body of applied research on value chain coordination. In the context of their home placement at UK, as assigned by their Interagency Personnel Agreement, this would include applied research and program advisement/evaluation identifying key assets and vulnerabilities in Kentucky local food value chains, contextualized within the national local food value chain landscape, and identification of policies, programs and market assets that buffer and sustain local value chains. We envision this work consisting of value chain coordination network mapping and benchmarking conducted in the context of policy and program recommendations to guide integration of VCC work into the institutional fabric of our local food system, including Extension and other institutions. Our TFC faculty will support the post doc to take scholarly agency in direct the development of research methods. TFC faculty affiliates have relevant expertise in social network analysis, program evaluation, agricultural policy and agricultural economics, and the post doc will be networked broadly with our engaged faculty. In the national research scope and context, the postdoc will lead efforts to solicit, copyedit, and publish 2-page “Value-Chain Practice Briefs” and make them available for easy access in perpetuity, through JAFSCD and other potential partners such as USDA, AgEconSearch, AgNIC, NCAT, ATTRA, and others. This would be accomplished through the postdoc being afforded an Associate Editor Role at JAFSCD under the direct mentorship by Duncan Hilchey, Editor-in-Chief of JAFSCD in partnership with the USDA AMS LFRD and UK TFC teams. To be clear, we envision overlap between the context of our local work as a “living laboratory” for the post doc, and national-scope value chain research directed by the USDA LRFD, and publication of applied scholarly output in JAFSCD. These entities are working in concert across funding and program interest lines, and the interaction of these three entities provides a high- impact and leading-edge context to VCC work. We would propose 75% effort assigned to USDA LFRD duties via Interagency Personnel Agreement, and 25% to UK/TFC (supervision of JAFSCD and scholarly outputs within this effort, via subaward). We would envision an option to renew for one additional year, pending the satisfaction of both parties.