Finding Local Resources: A Network Analysis and Knowledge Map of the Agricultural Sector in Alamance County, NC

Abstract

Benevolence Farm is a non-profit organization opening a local farm in rural Alamance County, NC that will house and provide career training for women as they transition out of prison. As they enter this new community, they will encounter challenges to finding and accessing local resources - including retail, employment, and local knowledge. For this project, we interviewed 20 local community members to identify and map local agricultural resources. Qualitative and social network analyses identified persistent challenges for the area’s local farms, including marketing, communication, and leveraging local knowledge. We recommended several steps for marketing goods at local retail and wholesale outlets. We identified key individuals the Farm should begin building immediate relationships with in order to access their social capital and local knowledge. We developed a web-based knowledge map to display the location of agricultural resources.