CitySeed: Design Brigade Week 2
Overview
This week, our team continued developing the research we started last week, building upon our project’s focus on food access and equity at farmers markets in New Haven. To frame our research, we began by recapping and evaluating the observations we recorded from our visits to the markets in Wooster Square and Edgewood Park. In light of (and in response to) these observations, we continued to hone in on our individual research topics, which we’ve divided into six categories: people, produce, place, rituals, precedents, and equity. We ended the week with an interview with Latha Swamy and Kimberley Acosta from the Food System Policy Division, where we learned about the work they are doing within the areas of food justice and activism here in New Haven.
Site Visit Takeaways
Last weekend’s visit to the Wooster Square and Edgewood Farmers’ Markets greatly influenced our research this week. A few takeaways that we discussed from this visit were:
- The entrance and exits of the Wooster Square market are very crowded, but the middle is more empty. How are the vendors distributed throughout the market? How can we as designers think about the procession of how people enter the market and the ways they flow through or congregate?
- The SNAP program that CitySeed has incorporated into their markets is great! Alyssa, the manager at Wooster Square gave us a helpful overview of the program in place, explaining CitySeed’s token system, which doubles SNAP/EBT credit used at the market. We’d like to better understand how often this is used and if there are any barriers that people face with SNAP at the market. Is there a stigma?
- We noticed that some vendors gave customers incentive to return the following week by having a deposit system (i.e. reusable jugs of milk returned and exchanged at each market). We thought this was a smart idea and it made us curious about a potential for other systems that could be implemented market-wide to increase community engagement.
- How could we implement more unity in how the vendors are set up? It was a bit difficult sometimes to know the names of each vendor because each sign looked different and was located in a different spot. Could a common sign in the same place on each tent or a market-wide map posted at the entrance be helpful for clarity and way-finding?
- The Wooster Square Market is located in a parking lot right now, which makes setup more convenient for vendors by allowing them to be able to drive directly to their spot and unload from there. How does this negatively or positively affect their setups? How do vendors’ vehicle transport/usage affect who sells at the market?
Some further questions that arose after this visit were:
- What is a CSA and how does it compare as an alternative to the market for vendors and shoppers?
- How can the use of SNAP be more equitable at markets?
- Why are there so few BIPOC farmers in Connecticut?
- How can the turnout and atmosphere of the markets better reflect New Haven as a whole?
- How are prices at the farmers market determined? How does this differ from grocery stores?
Research
In order to begin tackling the many aspects of food systems, farmers markets, and equity in New Haven, our team divided into several categories of research. As the weeks progress and our research develops, we anticipate that these categories will overlap.
01. People
Who are the stakeholders? What parties are actively involved in shaping the food system and food policy in New Haven? Where does CitySeed fit into this network?
This category of research focuses on the groups who participate in the ecosystem of food policy locally — consumers, producers, and local businesses — and their interrelationships and interdependencies as well as competition and opportunities for collaboration.
02. Produce
What is grown in the farms that sell at CitySeed markets? When are these crops grown and harvested? How do farmers determine the prices of their products and how do these prices compare to supermarkets? What is the difference between a CSA and a Farmers Market and which is more appealing to a farmer?
This category of research looks into the vendors at the CitySeed farmers markets as well as crops grown in Connecticut more broadly. Special focus has been placed on the prices of products sold at the markets, how they compare to other grocery stores in New Haven, and the barrier that this may create to local food access.
03. Places
Where are the farmers markets located and how accessible are they by foot, bike, car, or bus? What are the other options for groceries in New Haven and where are they located? Which neighborhoods have more or less access to affordable food? Which neighborhoods have more or less access to locally grown food?
This category of research has been focused on plotting the locations of food options (including farmers markets, vendors, grocery stores, community gardens, and food trucks), while overlaying transportation, demographic, and income data in order to understand different relationships and barriers within the food network in New Haven.
04. Rituals
What rituals are embedded into the products sold at farmers markets? What do these rituals look like over different scales of time (i.e. day, week, year, etc.)? How can we visualize and compare the rituals of different products?
By tracing products’ “rituals,” (how they get produced, transported, stored, sold, etc), we are trying to see the entire life cycle of a single item sold in the farmers market. In the coming weeks, we will use these diagrams as tools to help us understand which rituals to re-think and for which production stage to design.
05. Precedents
What are some examples of farmers markets that use design in meaningful ways? How can we categorize these precedents to learn from them? How do other farmer’s market examples relate to these precedents?
This category of research focuses on strategies of representing and categorizing precedents of farmers markets set-ups. In the diagram above, the x-axis represents the scale of stable vs. mobile and the y-axis represents the design for vendors/farmers vs. the public. These scales can help organize other farmer’s market precedents as they are collected.
06. Equity
How are we framing the problem that we want to address? What does inclusivity and equity look like at a farmers market? What are some opportunities for community engagement and inclusion in the markets? How can CitySeed attract more BIPOC vendors and customers?
This category of research seeks to define “equity” as it relates to farmers markets and food access in New Haven. Focus this past week has been placed on marketing strategies and programs that can help increase community impact and engagement.
Next Steps
In the coming week we plan to continue our research in the six areas outlined above. We hope to distill the information we gather into clear diagrams and find points of intersection among the different categories to further develop. Additionally, we have a conversation scheduled with Esther Rose-Wilen and the Growing Entrepreneurs at Gather New Haven, where we’re hoping to learn more about urban agriculture, community gardens, and youth entrepreneurship.
