Food & Justice Publications

Food and Climate Justice Publications

Christopher Bacon, Iris Stewart-Frey, Ed Maurer, William Sundstrom, and colleagues from the US and Central America have coordinated several community-based action research projects to analyze strategies that small-scale farmers could use to eliminate hunger and improve access to safe water as they face climate change and other hazards. Funding is from the National Science Foundation and the Agropolis Foundation.  

Koenig, A., Holtz, A., and Bacon, C.M. (2025). The 6th Annual Assessment of Food Security and Basic Needs at Santa Clara University 2025-2026. The Environmental Justice and Common Good Initiative and Agroecology Climate Resilience and Food Justice Lab. Santa Clara University, California, USA.

Bacon, C.M., L. C. Kelley, and I. T. Stewart. (2022). Toward a feminist political ecology of household food and water security during drought in northern Nicaragua. Ecology and Society 27(1):16.

Bacon, C. M., Sundstrom, W. A., Stewart, I. T., Maurer, E., & Kelley, L. C. (2021). Towards smallholder food and water security: Climate variability in the context of multiple livelihood hazards in Nicaragua. World Development, 143, 105468.

Bacon, C. M., Sundstrom, W. A., Stewart, I. T., & Beezer, D. (2017). Vulnerability to cumulative hazards: Coping with the coffee leaf rust outbreak, drought, and food insecurity in Nicaragua. World Development, 93, 136-152.

Bacon, C. M., Sundstrom, W. A., Gómez, M. E. F., Méndez, V. E., Santos, R., Goldoftas, B., & Dougherty, I. (2014). Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua's corn and coffee markets. Global Environmental Change, 25, 133-149. 

Maurer, E. P., Roby, N., Stewart-Frey, I. T., & Bacon, C. M. (2017). Projected twenty-first-century changes in the Central American mid-summer drought using statistically downscaled climate projections. Regional Environmental Change, 17(8), 2421-2432.

Bacon, C.M., L. C. Kelley, and I. T. Stewart. (2022). Toward a feminist political ecology of household food and water security during drought in northern Nicaragua. Ecology and Society 27(1):16. 

Bacon, C.M. Sundstrom, W. Stewart, IT., Maurer, E. and Kelley, L. (2021). Towards Smallholder Food and Water Security: Climate Variability in the Context of Multiple Livelihood Hazards in Nicaragua. World Development.143, 105468.

Christopher Bacon has conducted extensive community-based participatory research on fair trade coffee certifications and their implications for smallholder farmers in Latin America.

Bacon, C. M. (2015). Food sovereignty, food security and fair trade: The case of an influential Nicaraguan smallholder cooperative. Third World Quarterly, 36(3), 469-488.

Bacon, C. M., Rice, R. A., & Maryanski, H. (2015). Fair trade coffee and environmental sustainability in Latin AmericaFair trade coffee and environmental sustainability in Latin America. In L. T. Raynolds & E. A. Bennett, Handbook of Research on Fair Trade (pp. 388-404). Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Bacon, C.M. (2010). Who decides what is fair in Fair Trade: Agri-environmental governance of standards, access and price. Journal of Peasant Studies 37(1): 111–147.

Méndez, V. E., Bacon, C. M., Olson, M., Stillings, K. S., & Shattuck, A. K. (2010). Agrobiodiversity conservation and shade coffee smallholder livelihoods in Central America.  Professional Geographer. 62(3): 357–376. 

Méndez, V. E., Bacon, C. M., Olson, M., Petchers, S., Herrador, D., Carranza, C., ... & Mendoza, A. (2010). Effects of Fair Trade and organic certifications on small-scale coffee farmer households in Central America and Mexico. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 25(3), 236-251.

Bacon, C. M., Ernesto Mendez, V., Gómez, M. E. F., Stuart, D., & Flores, S. R. D. (2008). Are sustainable coffee certifications enough to secure farmer livelihoods? The Millennium Development Goals and Nicaragua's Fair Trade cooperatives. Globalizations, 5(2), 259-274.

Bacon, C. (2005). Confronting the coffee crisis: Can fair trade, organic, and specialty coffees reduce small-scale farmer vulnerability in northern Nicaragua? World Development, 33(3), 497-511.

Rhiney, K., Guido, Z., Knudson, C., Avelino, J., Bacon, C. M., Leclerc, G., Aime, M.A. Bebber, D. P. (2021). Epidemics and the future of coffee production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(27)

Kelley, L.C., Pitcher, L. and Bacon, C.M., (2018). Using Google Earth Engine to Map Complex Shade-Grown Coffee Landscapes in Northern Nicaragua. Remote Sensing, 10(6).

Christopher Bacon and Gregory Baker published the first study that maps private food assistance from soup kitchens and food pantries to community needs.

Jun, S., Ives, C., Zhang, Y., Lakhanpal, T., Chang, M., Barreras, S., Simonsen, E., Ding, A., Anderson, G., Paulson, S. E., Bascom-Slack, C., Osborn, K., Ibrahim-Watkins, Z., Jones, A., Aguirre, G., Bacon, C., Classen-Rodriguez, L., Dickerson, C., Henning, L., . . . Jay, J. A. (2026, Sept. 4). Course-based undergraduate research of antibiotic resistance ratios in settled dust show geospatial alignment with CAFO density in California’s Central Valley. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202609.0356.v1

Chen, S., Vollmer, L., Sotnik, G., Diekmann, L., & Bacon, C. (2025). Advancing local food systems despite deep federal budget cuts: An example from Silicon Valley, California, USA. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 15(1), 103–108.

Bacon, C., Gleicher, A., McCurry, E., & McNeil, C. (2024). Toward a justice approach to emergency food assistance and food waste: Exploring pantry–urban gardener partnerships in California’s Santa Clara County. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 13(3), 1-22.

Amore Rojas, A., Pugh, M., Svendahl, E., Holland, J, Duffy, K., Felix, P,Key, T., Wood, K., & Bacon, C.M. (2023). The 3rd Annual Assessment of Food Security and Basic Needs at Santa Clara University 2022-2023. Report. The Agroecology, Climate Resilience, and Food Justice Lab. Santa Clara University.

Bacon, C. M., & Baker, G. A. (2017). The rise of food banks and the challenge of matching food assistance with potential need: Towards a spatially specific, rapid assessment approach. Agriculture and Human Values, 34(4), 899-919.

Iris Stewart-Frey has examined disparities in school gardens. 

Stewart, I. T., Purner, E. K., & Guzmán, P. D. (2013). Socioeconomic disparities in the provision of school gardens in Santa Clara County, California. Children Youth and Environments, 23(2), 127-153.