New York City presents an enormous and ever-changing market for a large variety of fruits and vegetables. Some products are produced regionally, most come from distant corners of the world. Recent studies on agricultural commodity chains in the United States suggest that homogenization and corporate appropriation are associated with spatial expansion. Yet within New York City methods of food procurement are continually remade. East Asian immigrants in New York City have developed a diverse and dynamic system to satisfy the demands of their ethnic groups. Although the Asian food system is rapidly undergoing geographic expansion, it displays characteristics apart from other global food systems. Trade networks based in social relations, diverse cropping systems, and family owned and operated firms constitute the Asian food system. The seemingly unique nature of this food system leads to the main research questions, how is the distribution and production of Asian fruits and vegetables organized? Is it different than corporately controlled, globalized agriculture? Does it have different social and environmental impacts? Tying together previous studies on the globalization of agriculture, alternative food systems and studies on agrobiodiversity, this project will describe and analyze the cultivation and marketing of Asian fruits and vegetables on a newly emergent global scale. The project will be multi-sited and include New York City as the market destination, southern Florida as a well-established point of production and distribution, and Honduras as a newly emergent site of production. This project will combine standard ecological surveys and spatial analysis with semi-structured interviews to examine how the relationship between consumers, distributors and producers ultimately influence the use of plant resources in a food system.
By focusing on a food system broadly distinguished by ethnicity, this research will describe how immigrants not only create new market demands, but concurrently create new systems of resource use to satisfy their demands. This understanding is significant in a world of highly mobile people and commodities. This project will build on the tradition of research within geography that looks at the influence of political and economic structures on natural resource use, while taking a new approach that integrates this tradition with research on global agricultural systems. Research results will include impact analysis of a poorly-studied system of production and distribution and will generate suggestions for market-based agricultural development and trade regulation. High school students in New York City are included in the project as interns, providing them with scientific training. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.
