The 2024 National Agricultural Communications Symposium was held February 4-5th in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with other Lamm Lab members, Olivia Erskine presented her paper, authored with committee members Alexa Lamm, Kevan Lamm, and Catherine Sanders, titled “Public engagement in community gardens: Communicating to prepare for climate change impacts on gardens”, which is part of her thesis research.
The research explored community garden participants’ reasons for engaging in a community garden and their perceptions on the importance of climate-smart practices in community gardens. This research was part of a larger study exploring perceptions around climate change. A non-probability opt-in survey was administered online, and out of 1,010 usable survey responses, 172 people (~17%) indicated they engaged in a community garden. Respondents were then asked to indicate reasons for engaging in a community garden, and the study found participants engaged mostly for health reasons, followed by social reasons, and then financial reasons.
Respondents were also asked to indicate associated level of importance for 13 statements surrounding climate-smart practices, and these responses were averaged into a single scale. A multiple regression analysis was used to determine if health, social, and financial reasons predicted level of importance. The study found all three scales together (health, social, and financial) significantly predicted associated level of importance. Standing alone, only the health and social scales significantly predicted importance while the financial scale did not significantly predict importance.
Overall, these results were similar to other studies that found underlying motivations impacted pro-environmental behaviors. The research suggests these categories of motivations should be targeted by agricultural and environmental communicators when trying to emphasize the importance of climate-smart practices in community gardens. Those who engage in a community garden may increase climate-smart practices in their garden if communication about needing climate-smart adaptations is conveyed as necessary to ensure the continual health and social support the garden gives to them. The results of this study may be further explained by future research. There are many other concepts to be explored in this topic including impact of location/rurality on motivations behind engagement in a community garden and associated level of importance related to climate-smart adaptations.
Olivia’s work was presented at NACS in the same research session as Kristin Gibson’s doctoral dissertation work, while other Lamm Lab members participated in the research poster session and conducted professional development sessions.
NACS was held in conjunction with the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists annual meeting. To learn about additional Lamm Lab presentations held at this convergence of conferences, see our posts on the Southern Region meeting of the American Association for Agricultural Education, the Southern Rural Sociological Society annual meeting, and the Southern Region meeting of the American Society for Horticultural Sciences.
