Mission Four: Market Surveys

Background

Produce markets and especially farmers markets are an excellent representation of supply, demand, diversity, and network interactions of local agriculture. There is mix of socioeconomic groups, ethnicities, food origins, diets, knowledge, and ages present at most farmers markets and given their compact size and temporal extent, they are an easy place to study all the factors that contribute to what people grow, sell and eat. Proper pilot studies and random sampling is key to any market survey to ensure you have a good representation of the seller population, even at moderate sized markets, since even a simple survey can take a long time to complete given sellers busy schedules during selling hours.

Assignment

Students work in subteams of 2 (or 3) as part of a single large group project. Devise a method that ensures that two groups do not survey the same vendor twice. All data learned from the day will be pooled and each student will submit a report analyzing the data themselves. Have courtesy and respect for the vendors, paying attention to informed consent, and remembering that you are intruding in the environment and time where these people make their livelihoods.

Divide the market into two or more groups and develop two hypotheses based on any of the following variables:

- Seller's cultural groups

- Food vs. medicine vs. ornamentals (use category)

- Natives vs. Introduced species

- Herb vs. tree products

- Root vs. leaf/stem vs. reproductive organ products

- Seller's selling foods they eat vs. ones buyers have requested

- Organic vs. non-organic sellers

- Foods from their food log we've eaten vs. not

- Origins of the crops

- Origin of the crops from the students ancestral home vs. not

- Food miles or food sheds

- Networks of growers, sellers, and buyers

- Value

- Volume

- Vulnerability

Think about which of the biodiversity measures that Dr. Ticktin, Katie, Laura, and Heather have taught you this week that you can measure and compare on these different categories and use the species accumulation curves Dr. Bletter taught last week to see how complete your surveys are. Use the tools of EstimateS, spreadsheets, regressions (curve fitting), and biodiversity indices. Follow the methods mentioned in Nguyen (2004) and the tools of Lepofsky & Lertzman (2005) and Romney et al. (1986) to determine adequate sampling. Use the techniques for photographic and herbarium voucher specimens to identify and preserve data on the plants you have collected and so you have a publishable verifiable method. Good random sampling techniques as you developed for the community interviews are essential. Develop a set of short questions and data to collect for your 3 hours in the market.

From these measures, explore whether you have sampled the market adequately for your measures and discuss how your hypotheses are verified or disproved from data collected at the market.

A typed report will need to be submitted on each student's web site on the same day as the assignment. Submit an e-mail message to the instructors indicating the specific subaddress of the final report (this will serve as the act of submission and function as a date/time stamp).

The report should include the following parts:

Past science: (do not include the term past science within the outline of the site. this is included for organizational benefit.)

1. Introduction (discuss why the problem is important, possibly citing other researchers who have conducted similar studies and cite literature about the methods that will be used but do not discuss how you actually used the methods)

Present science: (do not include the term present science within the outline of the site. this is included for organizational benefit.)

2. Hypotheses (Clearly state only the hypotheses that were actually used.)

3. Materials and Methods (discuss the methods used and the equipment used to get the work done. only cite literature as a short-hand way to skip long discussions about methods when you have followed a method almost exactly as it has been done in the literature. When you have modified a method from the literature, then discuss it in the introduction and present your version here.)

4. Results (be specific and don't mess around with discussing the results. This may just be a few sentences that point to tables or graphs.)

5. Discussion (discuss the results as you interpret them. If you need other literature to help interpret them the write about that literature in the introduction and refer back to it here but don't cite it. Be sure to evaluate the hypotheses as "supported" or "unsupported" and remember that in science hypotheses are not usually "proven.")

Future science: (do not include the term future science within the outline of the site. this is included for organizational benefit.)

6. Conclusions (discuss the application of this experiment in a more general way for understanding human interactions with plants or environments. What theory or hypothesis would you now develop about how people around the world might interact with landscapes or botanical gardens, etc.?)

7. Literature cited: (list literature cited in alphabetical order by author last name. List complete citations rather than abbreviations for journals, etc.)

Schedule

8-9 AM: Watch and discuss Mark Bittman's TED Talk on agriculture and sustainability

9-9:15 AM: Prepare all tools needed for market survey (audio recorders, cameras, presses, cards for informed consent)

9:15-9:45 AM: Drive to Kauai Community College farmers market

9:45-1:30 PM: Collect data and samples, with possible time to talk to vendors after market closes

1:30 PM: Return to Ed Center to work on projects and eat lunch

2-5 PM: Work on market survey reports

5 PM: Turn in final reports to Dr. Bletter via email

Grading rubric

Covers background and theory 20%

States 2 hypothesis and significance clearly 20%

Uses biodiversity and accumulation tools 20%

Proper and clear analysis methods 20%

Discussion explores significance 20%