First Principles: Envisioning the Place of Local and Regional Foods in the U.S. Food System through the Lenses of Health and Sustainability

In recent years, public interest in food and agriculture has grown in tandem with fascination about locally produced foods. Willingness to promote local and regional food production can now be found in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, suggesting that the movement has entered the mainstream. Given the degree of public excitement and potential public investment, it is time to ask where local and regional foods fit within the predominantly national, and increasingly international, U.S. food system. This talk will address this question in two parts.

            Part one will examine the capacity of local and regional agricultural resources to meet food demands. Using research on the land requirements of the human diet and potential local foodsheds of New York State as a foundation, the capacity for producing food locally and regionally will be placed in the context of total national food needs. The available evidence provides a compelling argument that although not all food can be local, substantial capacity to produce food does exist close to most urban centers in the United States. How much of this local capacity should be directed at meeting local needs remains an open question.

            There is no single vision for the proper place of local and regional food within the American food system. Thus, part two of the talk will make the case that the role of local and regional food should be shaped by the larger goals of health and sustainability. Humanity faces the challenge of continuing to feed a growing world population while also providing more balanced diets, adapting to climate change, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, protecting environmental quality, reducing dependence on non-renewable resources, and supporting rural communities. Meeting this challenge will be a daunting task, and success is not guaranteed. Therefore, the roles of all food systems (local, regional, national, and international) should be evaluated based on their potential to address these problems.