Progressing Direction

After stepping away from this blog to concentrate on classes and other endeavors toward the pursuit of this research, I have come back with an evolved explanation of my research direction, and have realized that I must state my goal before any direction can be chosen, so.... The goal of this doctoral research is to create a life cycle assessment agent-based model that can account for the environmental impact of food consumption patterns in Hawaii. This is the first of many approaches I would like to explore the impact of food availability in order to improve information for food distribution businesses and consumers within a region or community.

The USDA Food Environment Atlas already extensively addresses my larger research goal for many different indicators. This doctoral research will be patterned off of the Food Price-Price Ratio indicators. However, instead of solely examining retail price, my indicators will factor in life cycle assessment to monetize the environmental impact of food choice alternatives.

Given available funding and data availability this doctoral research will focus on seafood in Hawaii. In order of the research to be meaningful I will have to look at specific species. Species of interest are:

1) tilapia or any type of fish that will serve the current purpose of low cost fish sticks, patties or fillets that are used in cafeterias, fast food establishment or frozen meals (comparison of various alternatives of locally available and imported species)
2) shrimp (local vs. import)
3) tuna (local vs. import)
4) salmon (wild vs. farmed)- this analysis does not examine local vs. import, but salmon is widely consumed on these islands

The data is coming from a survey that aims to gather the entire flow of seafood consumption in Hawaii in order to better understand what is imported, which species are consumed the most, and what is the distributional flow from import -> wholesale -> retail -> restaurant or home consumption of fresh, frozen and processed (canned, dried or processed) fish in the state of Hawaii. This survey will be done at the business and institutional levels, asking each operation the weight and price of purchase and sale of 18 different seafood species. A census is being attempted, meaning data for ALL seafood operations. A similar survey was attempted by SMS Research for NHRS (link papers.....) that used a stratified sample by economic unit. This data collection methodology will not truly capture seafood consumption in the island, but it can certainly give a better pictures. These studies will be examined in more depth in later postings.

Speaking of, going forward various articles and media will be reviewed on this blog, some related to this doctoral research that specifically pertains to seafood in Hawaii and some will simply pertain to food distribution and its environmental or nutritional impact. Each review will for the most part address the following points:

What was/were the main objective(s) of the paper?

What were the key methods or approach?

What were the important results and conclusions?

Errors in experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches?

Assumptions made with the data, calculations, models? Reasonable?

References? Amount of citations?

Meet stated objectives?

Main conclusions supported by data? Why or why not?

Number of times cited?

Impact on field of food distribution environmental or nutritional impacts?

Opinion

With that I continue this journey...