Navigating community engagement in participatory modeling of food systems

This paper describes the participatory modeling experiences of five discrete teams across the U.S. working to develop models of food systems to identify leverage points and policies to induce food system transformation. Collaboration between academic and community partners within these individual modeling processes enables teams to address food systems complexity, integrate scientific evidence and local knowledge into models, while improving a model's credibility and accessibility for policymaking. While tools for facilitating participatory modeling are becoming more available, there is scant discussion on the practicalities of community engagement processes, including how teams respond to the needs of partners, navigate challenges that arise during projects, and communicate results. Synthesizing results from five independent teams in Albany, New York; Austin, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Flint, Michigan, this paper provides an overview of each team's approach to community engagement for participatory modeling of food systems. Analysis of engagement strategies across these five teams revealed four essential components to successful participatory modeling projects: 1) building research in collaboration with partners from the onset, 2) developing awareness of the challenges of community-researcher partnerships, 3) supporting transparent communication, and 4) promoting justice and trust through accessible dissemination processes. We emphasize that there is no single best approach to participatory modeling with community partners, rather that researchers need to understand and respond to various stakeholder needs. While each team faced challenges to the engagement process, including responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, our findings reveal important considerations for research in participatory modeling for food system policy.