Mapping potential foodsheds in New York State by food group: An approach for prioritizing which foods to grow locally

Abstract

Public interest in local food continues to grow, but few analyses have examined the capacity for the US population to be supplied through local and regional food systems. This paper extends earlier work that demonstrated a method for mapping potential foodsheds and estimating the potential for New York to meet the food needs of the state's population centers. It provides a methodology for addressing the question, 'If land is limited, which foods should be grown locally?' A spatial model was developed to allocate the available agricultural land of New York State (NYS) to meet in-state food needs for six distinct food groups (grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat and eggs) across the eight largest population centers. An optimization routine was used to allocate land to maximize economic land use value (LUV). Eleven scenarios were examined, ranging from a baseline level of consumption of New York produced foods to a 100% local diet. Across the 11 scenarios, the amount of food supplied, the LUV attained, and the area of land allocated increased as the 'willingness' to consume local products increased. This approach dictated that land was preferentially devoted to higher-value food groups relative to lower-value groups, and no scenario used all available land. Under the 100% local scenario, 69% of total food needs (on a fresh weight basis) were supplied in-state with an average food distance of 238 km. This scenario provided food from only four of the six groups, namely, dairy, eggs, fruit and vegetables. These results suggest that a much larger proportion of total food needs (on a weight basis) might be provided from in-state production than was found in previous work. LUV serves as a compelling optimization function, and future work should investigate the degree to which maximizing returns to land complements or conflicts with social and environmental goals of local and regional food systems.

Biophysical Constraints to Potential Production Capacity of Potato across the U.S. Eastern Seaboard Region

“…Even at the local scale, however, there are ongoing questions and knowledge gaps over issues such as the ability of farms to sustain local populations with the quantity and variety of necessary food and the energy efficiencies of local‐scale food systems (Clancy and Ruhf, 2010; Martinez et al, 2010). As a result, there is increased interest in the study of regional‐scale food production systems as a balance between local and global food systems (Stevenson et al, 2011; Peters et al, 2012). While local systems typically encompass 80‐ to 160‐km radii, regional systems are defined by boundaries large enough to include multiple states (Clancy and Ruhf, 2010) and thus have the potential to offer greater food production capacity, efficiency, and security.…”

Local food in Iceland: identifying behavioral barriers to increased production and consumption

“…On the production side, we see potential for further research identifying land area suitable for growing a sufficient amount of crops, ensuring sustainable production methods. Next steps could also go beyond our assumption that the current mix of crop production would not change to identify what additional varieties of crops are possible to grow in the country, and how diverse the local food production might become as a result, perhaps using the methods of Peters et al (2011) to prioritize which food groups to grow locally, using spatial modeling of potential foodsheds. With work already underway towards mapping land use in Iceland (Agricultural University of Iceland 2008), there is potential to match these data with the amount of land area needed to grow the main crops, according to the most suitable soil type and weather conditions in each area of the country.…”

Urban Cultivation and Its Contributions to Sustainability: Nibbles of Food but Oodles of Social Capital

“…They found that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are gained from an appropriate choice of local crops that can substitute for foods with high carbon footprints. Such crop prioritizing for sustainability also can be applied to broader multi-foodshed areas, as has been done for New York State [57].…”