Miami’s Instagram Farmers: Increasing Actually-Existing Resilience on the Farm to Environmental and Socioeconomic Changes
Topics: Agricultural Geography
, Cultural and Political Ecology
, Human-Environment Geography
Keywords: agricultural resilience, food security, farming, social media
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 14
Authors:
Melissa Bernardo, Florida International University
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Abstract
South Florida is often overlooked in terms of national significance to the U.S. food system. However, Florida is second only to California in vegetable production, and Miami-Dade is the second largest producing county in the state. Local farmers in this region experience a vast amount of change from sea level rise, urban development, water management, and most recently, the impact of COVID-19 on food distribution networks. This paper draws on ethnographic data to examine how two forms of agricultural resilience have developed in response: one oriented around conventional agribusiness that focuses on the persistence of the existing industrial food system and another that targets more dispersed, decentralized connections that bring together local and global economies in new and unexpected ways to increase food security. In Miami, this first form of resilience involves top-down programing and targeted services promoted by regional extension agencies, that I argue, results in compounding farming vulnerabilities when put in practice. On the other hand, the second form - ‘actually-existing resilience’ - is autonomously developed by local farmers that serves to increase their adaptive capacities to unforeseen changes. In this paper, I examine the use of social media platforms by Dade farmers as an example of actually-existing resilience in which they effectively reconfigure their food distribution networks. Overall, this paper intends to distinguish between the different forms of agricultural resilience that operate within South Florida and to illustrate how moments of crises can serve as opportunities for transformation by the very communities that are most deeply impacted.
Miami’s Instagram Farmers: Increasing Actually-Existing Resilience on the Farm to Environmental and Socioeconomic Changes
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
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