Farm-to-School Programs' Local Foods Activity in Southern Arizona: A Case Study

Abstract

This analysis applies principles and methods from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Local Foods Toolkit to demonstrate the moderating influence of countervailing effects on the economic impacts of local food purchases through farm-toschool programs in Southern Arizona using USDA Farm to School Census data. The analysis applies and expands upon recommendations in the Toolkit, introducing the concept of export substitution and exploring how water resource constraints create tradeoffs for farms through crop-shifting and cropping rotations. The analysis reveals that for fruit and vegetable exporting regions, export substitution can be a major countervailing effect. Furthermore, the analysis examines the usefulness of the Farm to School Census as a secondary data source for estimating the economic impacts of local food activities, allowing us to make recommendations for how the Census could be expanded and supplemented for regional economic applications.

Economic impact assessment of public incentives to support farm-to-school food purchases

“…Early FTS research focus on the social impacts to stakeholders involved and the gains in knowledge obtained (Joshi et al, 2008), while others assess their efficacy as nutritional tools (Graham & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2005;Ozer, 2007). More recent attention has focused on the economic implications of FTS initiatives through a diverse array of economic development benefits based on the propensity of local food producers to spend more on labor and other expenses per dollar of output that lead to job creation and spillover effects on local economies (Hughes & Boys, 2015;Shideler et al, 2018;Duval, et al, 2019), as well as specific benefits to farmers shifting to this market channel (Pinchot, 2014;Becot et al, 2017).…”

“…More recently, research has included actual school food purchase data but at more aggregate levels. Duval et al (2019) adapt USDA's "Local Food Economics Toolkit" approach (Thilmany McFadden, et al 2017 to evaluate economic impacts of alternative scenarios involving opportunity costs, resource constraints, and export substitution informed by data from the Farm to School Census and aggregate school spending through government programs aimed at increasing purchases of fruits and vegetables. Christensen et al (2019) present a framework for evaluating the economic impacts of farm-to-school programs by combining primary and secondary data to customize an input-output model, reflecting the complex supply chains that link producers and schools, and apply it through two case studies representing Georgia and Minneapolis (MN) public schools.…”