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56 CHAPTER 04: PRIORITY OUTCOMES, INDICATORS AND MEASURES• Measures 1.1–1.7: These are variations of marketopportunities or impacts that could provide astable income to food producers and other foodbusinesses. The number of new jobs, addedincome or jobs maintained, in relation to schoolfood markets, as well as the frequency of sales canhelp researchers understand over time the stabilityof the school food market.• Measure 1.5: Businesses that hire a part- orfull-time position to manage school accountsis included as a research level measure (butnot at the program level), because this data isdifficult for a school site to collect and measureconsistently. Researchers, on the other hand,may have additional time and resources availableto analyze data received from the school siteusing tools such as input-output models, impactanalysis for planning (IMPLAN), economic impactsof studies of direct marketing to consumers andfarm level studies modeling potential impacts fromhypothetical changes in food consumption 4–6,9,40 .However, there isn’t consensus in the fieldon a preferred methodology for any of thesestudies and there are challenges in interpretingthe findings from one study to the next 5 . Whilethe field of economic impact analysis evolves,researchers can continue to explore how farm toschool activities lead to market opportunities andnew revenue sources for local food system actorsthrough sales to schools and to other markets.These measures form a plausible link betweenschools and other market opportunities 61 , whichcan include community supported agriculturesales to families, farmers’ markets, and sales torestaurants, juvenile detention centers, detentioncenters, grocery stores, universities, hospitals andother institutions.• Measures 1.7–1.11: These measures reflectmarket opportunities that may develop as aresult of working with schools, such as foodhubs (organizations combine products fromdifferent producers, market and distribute theseproducts on behalf of farmers and ranchers) 62,63 .A related research question worth exploring isthe relationships between producers who sellto schools (for example, are there collaborativestructures being formed to meet the demand) andhow that affects their potential to sell to othermarkets such as hospitals, universities, etc.The project team explored three other areas ofresearch that are needed in the long term, but didTable 14Community Economic Development: Long-Term Outcomes Needing Further ResearchIndicator 1: School district nutrition service program financial stabilityMeasure: Net balance stays in the black over time with increased local purchasesIndicator 2: Farm to school market profitabilityMeasure: Producer, processor and distributor’s revenue is higher than expenses for invested time and resources to bringlocal products to school marketsIndicator 3: Infrastructure is in place to support local food production, processing and distributionMeasure: Access to financial capital for small and mid-sized businessesMeasure: Access to material capital such as micro-processing, refrigeration units, trucks, etc.Measure: Access to aggregators and distributors to connect producers to wholesale marketsEVALUATION FOR TRANSFORMATION