from the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development |
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Resilience, reimagined: How a Wisconsin restaurant became a hub for food system transformation.
The concept of resilience increasingly shapes how we think about, interact with, and fund projects to shape a fundamentally uncertain world. When the COVID-19 pandemic fractured supply chains, shut restaurant doors, and exposed labor inequalities, calls for greater food system resilience escalated. The owners of farm-to-table restaurant Brix Cider and their network of producers and processors in southern Wisconsin responded to this call. Over the next four years, the Brix Project shaped community discussion and practice around resilience to imagine and enact new possibilities for their food system.
In a new JAFSCD article, Local food system resilience in discourse and community practice: Findings from southern Wisconsin, author Jules Reynolds presents findings from this community-engaged research collaboration. This study highlights how grassroots efforts strategically leveraged dominant resilience rhetoric while advancing more politically conscious food system transformation. Corresponding author Jules Reynolds can be contacted at jreynolds7@wisc.edu.
KEY FINDINGS -
Though often criticized, the ambiguity in the definition of resilience proved valuable for Brix Project grassroots organizers. The strategic use of resilience enabled the organizers to secure funding and resources while advancing broader and more transformative food system goals.
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The Brix Project enacted place-based resilience through stable yet flexible relations in a context of abundance, relational autonomy, and collaboration.
- These food system interventions demonstrate transformative resilience in practice.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE Based on these findings, recommended strategies to address uncertainty and foster enduring change in the food system should be: -
place-based and embedded in community and shared values;
- rooted in the logics of abundance and collaboration to redirect from a politics of preservation toward one of transformation; and
- flexible to incorporate emergent community needs and adaptive innovation.
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How did a grassroots farm-to-table project leverage the rhetoric of resilience to enact transformative visions for southern Wisconsin’s food system? Read the full @JAFSCD article for free: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2025.144.016
Photo above: A Brix Project film screening and panel discussion in 2021 about the small grain movement. Photo provided by the author. |
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From the review: "Food in a Just World, by Tracey Harris and Terry Gibbs, offers a far-reaching analysis of injustice in the global food system. The book weaves together narratives of nonhuman animal exploitation and discussions of human rights, structural violence, climate change, and environmental degradation to show how the animal-industrial complex (A-IC) both reflects and reinforces deep systemic inequities. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with researchers, workers, policymakers, advocates, and activists from diverse backgrounds, the authors take a critical stance toward our institutions and relationships with nonhuman animals in the food system. Their approach exposes the invisible interconnections of oppression from the perspectives of citizen-consumers, workers, nonhuman animals, and the environment, while building a vision for a just transition rooted in radical democracy, transparency, accountability, and compassion. . . ." Read the entire book review for free.
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JAFSCD SHAREHOLDER JOB OPPORTUNITY |
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Position Opening: LEO Lecturer III
The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the School of Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) at the University of Michigan invites individuals to apply for the position of LEO Lecturer III to teach courses in the area of Sustainable Food Systems, as well as support the Program in the Environment (PitE) Food minor and Sustainable Food Systems Initiative. Applications are welcomed and encouraged regardless of background and identity.
Application deadline: September 27, 2025
Learn more here! |
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