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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Burlington, Vermont » Food Systems Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #413732
Research Project: Increasing Small-Farm Viability, Sustainable Production and Human Nutrition in Plant-Based Food Systems of the New England States

Location: Food Systems Research Unit

Title: Regional self-reliance model of the New England food system

Author
item Peters, Christian
item BARLEY, LAURA - Massachusetts Department Of Agricultural Resources
item DONAHUE, BRIAN - Brandeis University
item MCCARTHY, ASHLEY - University Of Vermont
item STOLL, JOSHUA - University Of Maine

Submitted to: Ag Data Commons
Publication Type: Database / Dataset
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/18/2024
Publication Date: 4/18/2024
Citation: Peters, C.J., Barley, L., Donahue, B., Mccarthy, A., Stoll, J. 2024. Regional self-reliance model of the New England food system. Ag Data Commons. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/25234099.v1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/25234099.v1

Interpretive Summary: Stakeholders in New England would like to know how much of the region's food needs could be supplied by its agriculture and fisheries. The “Regional self-reliance model of the New England food system” was developed to answer this question. The model integrates data on human food needs, food losses and waste, livestock feed requirements, crop yields, and land availability to estimate the land requirements of supplying a given amount of food across different scenarios of regional self-supply.

Technical Abstract: The “Regional self-reliance model of the New England food system” is a model for exploring future scenarios of regional food self-reliance, generated as part of the New England Feeding New England (NEFNE) project. The model estimates the land requirements of supplying a given level of self-reliance, accounting for food needs, food losses and waste, livestock feed requirements, crop yields, and land availability. Input data were collected from an array of secondary data sources, including, the Loss-Adjusted Food Supply, the Census of Agriculture, the New England Agricultural Bulletin, and Major Land Uses. The unique contribution of the model is to organize the data in a form that permits exploration of alternative scenarios of diet, target self-reliance, and land availability for the New England region. The model can be used to estimate the biophysical capacity for New England to meet its own food needs from its agricultural land, looking out to 2030.