• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses Dissertations and Theses July 2020 Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration into the Growing Trend of Farm-to-Table Communities Across the United States Benjamin Breger University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2 Part of the Environmental Design Commons, Food Studies Commons, Physical and Environmental Geography Commons, and the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons Recommended Citation Breger, Benjamin, "Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration into the Growing Trend of Farm-to-Table Communities Across the United States" (2020). Masters Theses. 934. https://doi.org/10.7275/hazh-xp67 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/934 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration into the Growing Trend of Farm-to-Table Communities Across the United States A Thesis Presented by BENJAMIN S. BREGER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF REGIONAL PLANNING May 2020 Department of Landscape Architecture of Regional Planning © Copyright by Benjamin Breger 2020 All Rights Reserved Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration into the Growing Trend of Farm-to-Table Communities Across the United States A Thesis Presented by BENJAMIN S. BREGER Approved as to style and content by: _____________________________________ Elizabeth Brabec, Chair _____________________________________ Carey Clouse, Member _____________________________________ Mark Hamin, Member _____________________________________ Robert Ryan, Department Chair Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study would not have been possible without support from my classmates, the LARP faculty and staff, the network of agrihood professionals who helped me craft the scope of this research, the agrihood developers, farm managers, and residents who took my survey or participated in an interview, and my thesis committee consisting of Mark, Carey, and Elizabeth. Thank you especially to Elizabeth, my committee chair, for guiding me through this two-year process and sharing your knowledge on neighborhood planning and food systems. Finally, an immense amount of appreciation for my family and Laura for your sustained support, patience, and encouragement throughout the process of writing this thesis, my four years of graduate school, and everything it took to get me to this point. iv ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING AGRIHOODS: AN EXPLORATION INTO THE GROWING TREND OF FARM-TO- TABLE COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATE MAY 2020 BENJAMIN BREGER, B.S., BATES COLLEGE M.L.A./M.R.P. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Elizabeth Brabec Agrihoods are a recent trend in real estate development that integrate agricultural amenities - such as working farms, orchards, or community gardens - into residential or mixed-use communities. As an emergent trend, agrihoods have the potential to enhance farmland preservation and local and regional food systems, making them a ripe area for research. However, very little scholarly research has been carried out to characterize, contextualize or evaluate agrihood developments. Thus far, the development model has primarily been detailed in popular media sources. This thesis serves as a baseline study that seeks to understand how neighborhood food systems operate within agrihood developments and how residents engage with their agricultural amenities. A mixed-methods approach utilized an online survey for agrihood residents and interviews with developers and farm managers to describe a subset of agrihoods as case studies. Seventy-eight agrihoods were identified; six were selected for case study analysis, three of which provided results for the resident survey (n=388). Survey results indicate that the character of the community was a more important motivator for agrihood residents to move to their community compared to the agricultural amenities. While all v case study agrihoods sell produce directly to consumers through a CSA, farm store, or both, few survey respondents indicated they were CSA members or regularly shopped at the neighborhood farm store, with cost and convenience identified as the biggest barriers. While resident engagement with the neighborhood farm may be limited, charging an annual resident fee to support the farm – an approach taken by four out six case study communities – may provide a guaranteed revenue source to the farm amidst low levels of resident engagement with the agrihoods’ sales outlets. Interviewees provided insight into the nuances of operating agrihood farms, enhancing resident engagement, and the spatial design of communities. The results of this thesis can help agrihood developers and managers, and land-use regulators to further understand this new development model. Furthermore, the findings in this thesis provide avenues for future research on how agrihoods contribute to farmland preservation and local and regional food systems. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions ...................................................................................................................... 6 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 7 The Term ‘agrihood’ .................................................................................................................... 7 Master-Planned Developments Through History ........................................................................ 8 Agrihoods ................................................................................................................................... 18 Local Foods Movement ............................................................................................................. 24 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 37 3. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 39 Identifying and Characterizing Agrihoods ................................................................................. 39 Identifying Case Study Communities ........................................................................................ 42 Collecting Data and Creating Maps for Case Study Communities ............................................ 42 Administering Online Survey for Agrihood Residents .............................................................. 43 Semi-Structured Interviews with Agrihood Developers, Farmers, and Managers .................... 43 4. RESULTS ..................................................................................................................... 45 Agrihood Identification and Characterization ............................................................................ 45 Case Study Communities ........................................................................................................... 47 Case Study Communities Synthesis ........................................................................................... 72 Resident Survey ......................................................................................................................... 79 vii 5. KEY THEMES AND LESSONS ................................................................................. 92 Farm Design and Location ......................................................................................................... 92 Providing Convenience in Food Shopping ................................................................................ 95 Resident Engagement Strategies ................................................................................................ 97 Importance of Farm Staff ........................................................................................................... 99 6. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 102 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ 112 A. AGRIHOOD DISCOVERY TABLE......................................................................... 113 B. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ...................................................................................... 117 C. INTERVIEW PARTICIPATION SCRIPT ...............................................................

Load more

  149

Copy Link