Urban agriculture with Dr. Boules
The Research
Interviewing Farms
Interviewing Farms
F.E.E.D. members are working under Dr. Boules at the University of Maryland to assess the state of local urban agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic. This project examines the innovations that are being undertaken by urban growers and the organizations that support them to adapt to the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their businesses and livelihoods. By gathering data in three places (District of Columbia, Prince George’s County, MD and Arlington County, VA) that are in geographic proximity and are interconnected socially, economically, and politically, this study aims to place the adaptation strategies of individual urban agriculture projects in broader municipal and regional contexts.
Interviewing Farms
Interviewing Farms
Interviewing Farms
While most research tends to focus on numerical data collection and analysis, this Urban Agriculture project had a higher focus on analyzing interview data to determine what anti-COVID solutions were being implemented. Therefore, one of the major tasks that FEED members partook in was scheduling and interviewing urban farms. And with more than 180 different farms to keep track of, this was no easy task. FEED members sent regular emails to potential subjects, organized and kept track of the status of every farm via Google Sheets, and extensively interviewed available farms to determine how exactly they adapted to the pandemic, along with whether those adaptations would persist in the future.
Coding Interviews
Interviewing Farms
Coding Interviews
Once our research team obtained the interview transcripts, we needed map important quotes in each document to a specific theme (such as "COVID obstacles"), a process known as coding. To accomplish this, FEED members learnt and utilized a new software program called ATLAS.ti, which enabled us to categorize quotes based on themes, include annotations describing our thought process, and view quick breakdowns over the frequency of each theme. Even though our research was qualitative in nature, thanks to the work of FEED students, we were able to numerize the data we acquired from our interview transcripts to see if certain trends existed between different solutions and themes.