College of Agriculture & Natural Resources

Modeling Household Food & Nutrition Security: A Participatory System Dynamics Model from Detroit, MI


Master’s Thesis Defense


by Kyle Metta


Friday, May 20, 2016


Time: 3 p.m.


Room 130, Natural Resources Building

Abstract

The local food policy council have emerged as a grass roots model over the last 30 years to address and fill gaps in the food policy arena. Their aim is often big, to tackle the complexities, injustices, and gaps in food policy. They are often incorporate a systems lens of the food system and take on challenges of food sovereignty, food security, local control, and justice. For this project, we partnered with the Detroit Food Policy Council and local community partner FoodPlus Detroit, to examine the concept of community food security and understand more fully how it may be achieved in the City of Detroit.

Through a participatory process called group model building, this research identifies systemic barriers to food and nutritional security and uses a simulation model to identify areas for local policy intervention. The system dynamics model simulates a household embedded in multiple levels of complex tension - from the effects of household finances, to the impact of an evolving “culture of convenience”, the model explores how changes in the local and larger food system may manifest in terms of food and nutrition security.

Committee Members:


• Dr. Laura Schmitt Olabisi, Chairperson
• Dr. Maria Claudia Lopez

• Dr. Michael Hamm