Ivy Ken
George Washington University, DC·Social Science
Why do multinational food companies build meat and protein plants in sparsely populated parts of rural America? What happens to the land, the workers, the animals and the towns around these plants?
- Fields
Social Science
- Topics
food industry
meatpacking
protein supply chain
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Examine how multinational food companies shape rural land use and why they open facilities in sparsely populated areas, using ethnographic interviews with industry representatives and two years of observation at industry meetings.
- Determine how federal and state decisions relate to the food industry's labor needs, and what public officials have done to influence where facilities go and who works there, using interviews and analysis of public documents.
- Compare industry strategies at about 54 facilities in 20 counties across two states with different rules, to weigh the benefits and costs of the protein supply chain for people, animals and ecosystems.
More about the research
This project studies how industry decisions move people, animals and resources into rural areas, and how governments shape those decisions.
Why it matters
Rural towns that host large food-processing plants live with their effects on land, jobs, labor supply and the environment. By showing how companies choose sites and how officials shape those choices, this research could give local residents, community groups and public officials practical information for decisions about the protein industry in their area.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
George Washington University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $382M a year on research, 225 research doctorates a year.
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