Dr. Amy Guptill

Associate Professor of Sociology

Contact Info

106 Brown Building
Office Phone: 585-395-5657
E-mail: aguptill@brockport.edu

Education

PhD, Development Sociology, Cornell University
MS, Development Sociology, Cornell University
BA magna cum laude, Sociology, University of Vermont

Areas of Specialization:

Food systems
Community and rural development

Courses Taught

Introduction to Sociology
Social Statistics
Sociology of Food
Development and Globalization
Educational Mentor Tutorial (Delta College)
Society & Culture I (Delta College)
Society & Culture II (Delta College)
Technology & Society (Delta College)

Current Research

I want to understand why alternative food production and marketing projects succeed or fail and the impacts they have on the people and areas they serve. Recent projects have focused on the organic dairy industry, cooperative agricultural marketing, and sustainable agriculture efforts in Puerto Rico. My current project focuses on organizations using online technologies to sell locally produced foods and other agricultural products. How do these projects operate? And how do they fit with other local marketing systems, such as farmers’ markets, farm-subscription systems (CSAs), and cooperative food stores? I conduct qualitative research on how these projects work and use computerized mapping programs (GIS) to understand more about where they emerge and succeed.

Selected Publications:

Guptill, Amy, Denise Copelton and Betsy Lucal. Forthcoming. Food and Society: Principles and Paradoxes. London: Polity.

Guptill, Amy. 2009. “Exploring the Conventionalization of Organic Dairy: Trends and Counter-Trends in Upstate New York.” Agriculture and Human Values 26: 29-42.

Guptill, Amy and Richard Welsh. 2008. “Is Relationship Marketing an Alternative to the Corporatization of Organics? A Case-Study of OFARM)” Pp 55-78 inFood and the Mid-Level Farm: Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle, edited by Thomas A. Lyson, G.W. Stevenson and Rick Welsh, MIT Press.

Grow, Shelly, Amy Guptill, Thomas Lyson, and Rick Welsh. 2008. "The Effect of Laws That Foster Agricultural Bargaining: The Case of Apple Growers in Michigan and New York State." Pp. 179-201 inFood and the Mid-Level Farm: Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle, edited by Thomas A. Lyson, G.W. Stevenson and Rick Welsh, MIT Press.

Guptill, Amy. 2008. “Infertile Ground: The Struggle for a New Puerto Rican Food System.” Pp. 203-224 in The Fight over Food: Producers, Consumers, and Activists Challenge the Global Food System, edited by Wynne Wright and Gerad Middendorf, Pennsylvania State University Press, Rural Studies Series.

Carro-Figueroa, Vivian and Amy Guptill. 2007. “Emerging Farmers Markets and the Globalization of Food Retailing: A Perspective from Puerto Rico.” Pp. 260-276 in Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability, edited by Thomas A. Lyson and C. Clare Hinrichs, University of Nebraska Press.

Pluke, Richard and Amy Guptill. 2005. “The social, ecological, and farming-system constraints on organic crop protection in central Puerto Rico.” Organic Research (a subscription database of peer-reviewed research on organic agriculture produced by CAB International).

Lyson, Thomas A. and Amy Guptill. 2004. “Commodity Agriculture, Civic Agriculture and the Future of U.S. Farming.” Rural Sociology, 69: 370-385.

Guptill, Amy and Jennifer L. Wilkins. 2002. “Buying Into the Food System: Trends in Food Retailing in the U.S. and Implications for Local Foods.” Agriculture and Human Values, 19: 39‑51.

Lyson, Thomas A., Amy Guptill, and Gilbert W. Gillespie Jr. 2000. “Community Engagement and Dairy Farm Performance: A Study of Farm Operators in Upstate New York” Research in Rural Sociology and Development, vol. 8.

Grants and Awards:

United University Professions Individual Development Award for “A comparative study of local food cooperatives (LFCs) and online farmers’ markets,” 2009.

The College at Brockport, Scholarly Incentive Grant for “A comparative study of local food cooperatives (LFCs) and online farmers’ markets,” 2009.

New York State United University Professions, Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Affirmative Action/Diversity Leave Grant for “Can the organic dairy industry revitalize the rural Northeast?”, 2007.

United University Professions Individual Development Award for “Can the organic dairy industry revitalize the rural Northeast?”, 2006.

The College at Brockport, Scholarly Incentive Grant for “Farmer to farmer: How does access to organic feed affect the viability of organic dairies in upstate NY?”, 2006.

The College at Brockport, Scholarly Incentive Grant for “Alternative Agriculture in Post-Development Puerto Rico,” 2005.