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Timmons, David S.

Community Development and Applied Economics

2006

MS

Across the United States there is increasing interest in local foods, as seen in the renaissance of farmers' markets and other forms of direct sales from farmers to consumers. Nationally, direct sales increased from $517 million annually in 1992 to $812 million in 2002 (in constant 2002 dollars), an increase of more than 50%. Also, hundreds of initiatives and projects have been implemented around the country to promote local food. In the northeast, every state department of agriculture has implemented some kind of buy-local initiative. Such efforts would benefit from more and better data about local food, since evaluating and assessing the efficacy of local food programs depends on such data. Yet local food data are not readily available, and there is no systematic way of tracking local food use at regional, state or community levels. The major objective of this thesis research is to develop tools to quantify local food use in the United States. The thesis first presents an overall introduction of local food issues and a general review'of previous studies on local food, then presents two articles, one on measuring local food, and a second on understanding direct food sales. The thesis concludes with a summary and recommendations for future research. Vermont has been a leading state in promoting local foods. This thesis reviews Vermont's local food efforts, identifying major factors associated with the local food movement. It also reviews previous Vermont local food studies for clues about the state's production potential, and looks to agricultural location theory and consumer research on local food for explanations about why food might be local in Vermont (or anywhere).
The first article reviews previous methods used in measuring food self-sufficiency and local food and presents a method for estimating local food consumption, comparing results from Vermont with those from the other 49 states. An upper bound on Vermont local food consumption is 38%, based on in-state production, and a lower bound is 1.2%, based on per-capita direct sales from farmers to consumers. While the range is broad, both bounds provide useful indicators for monitoring changes in local food use. In the second article, regression models are developed to help understand how direct sales vary at the state and county levels around the country. Four variables that significantly correlate to direct sales are identified: average farm size, population density, geographical region of the country, and available farmland. On a per capita basis, Vermont has the highest direct sales in the United States, at more than five times the national average. But regression results can be used to assess potential for further growth, and suggest that Vermont direct sales could still be increased substantially. If promoting local food is a policy goal, efforts to quantify the extent and impact of local food are needed, as is greater understanding about local food potential in different geographic areas. This thesis research begins to fill such gaps in knowledge about local food, which has been increasingly promoted, though little understood.