Washington Food Expenditures

Trying to calculate how much Washington State citizens spend on food I compiled and created these quick stats:

U.S. total annual food expenditures per capita (2008 dollars): $3,888
Source: US GAO report,” U.S. Agriculture: Retail Food Prices Grew Faster Than the Prices Farmers Received for Agricultural Commodities, but Economic Research Has Not Established That Concentration Has Affected These Trends”, GAO-09-746R June 30, 2009, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-746R, viewed Jan 20, 2010

Washington State Population: 6,549,224
Source: 2008 US Census

Total food expenditures for Washington citizens: $25,463,382,912

The Economic Impact of Increasing Production of Healthy food for Regional Markets

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture continues to kick out strong, timely research. In March 2010 the center released Selected Measures of the Economic Values of Increased Fruit and Vegetable Production and Consumption in the Upper Midwest. From the executive summary:

Two separate analyses were conducted. The first provides state-only estimates where the economic values are compiled considering each state’s farmers and each state’s consumption as a distinct and closed study area. The second analysis evaluates individual counties within the six-state region considering both their capacity and potential to produce fresh fruits or vegetables to serve medium to large metropolitan regional markets with populations in excess of 250,000 persons. This second analysis is indifferent to state boundaries.

Both research scenarios also presuppose that 50 percent of the local fruit and vegetable production will be marketed via producer-owned fruit and vegetable stores. The economic values of those activities also are partially estimated.

These are the relevant findings:

Under the first scenario:

* 270,025 cropland acres would be needed to produce the partial-year demands of 28 fresh fruits and vegetables in the six-state region. That is roughly equivalent to the average amount of cropland in one of Iowa’s 99 counties. Those acres would produce $882.44 million in farm-level sales, which would be worth $3.31 billion when sold at retail.
* Considering all industrial linkages, farm-level production would result in 9,302 total jobs region-wide, earning a total of $395.12 million in labor incomes.
* The land required to produce those fruits and vegetables would have to come from conventional agriculture as the amount of cropland is fixed. Considering all industrial linkages, corn and soybean production on those same acres supported 2,578 jobs and $59.12 million in labor incomes.
* If 50 percent of that production were sold via producer-owned markets, the region would need a total of 1,405 establishments staffed by 9,652 jobs earning $287.64 million in labor incomes.

Under the second scenario:

* The 28 metropolitan markets would require 195,669 fruit and vegetable acres to produce $637.44 million in farm-level sales.
* Considering all relevant multipliers, that farm-level production would support 6,694 jobs and $284.61 million in labor income in the six-state area.
* The land required to produce those fruits and vegetables would have to come from conventional agriculture as the amount of cropland is fixed. Considering all industrial linkages, corn and soybean production on those same acres supported 1,892 jobs and $42.517 million in labor incomes.
* It would take 875 fruit and vegetable markets to distribute these crops using the producer-retailers in the metropolitan areas that are actually within the region, which would in turn support 6,021 jobs in those establishments earning $180.7 million in labor incomes.

Source: David Swenson, "Selected Measures of the Economic Values of Increased Fruit and Vegetable Production and Consumption in the Upper Midwest", Department of Economics, Iowa State University, March 2010, http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/research/marketing_files/midwest.html

Satisfying Human Food, Feed, and Fiber Needs

Recently the National Research Council released a comprehensive report entitled Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. I have grabbed a few key quotes from that report and encourage you to go purchase a copy of the almost 600 pages of information. From that conclusion chapter:

" As discussed in Chapter 1, satisfying human food, feed, and fiber needs is one of the sustainability goals in agriculture. Although practices for improving sustainability require taking some land out of production (for example, maintaining wetlands and riparian buffer strips), many farming practices for improving environmental sustainability do not compromise productivity and might even enhance yield (for example, cover cropping, crop rotations, and integrated pest management), as reported in Chapter 3. The determination of the production potential associated with various farming practices or systems at a regional or global level is actually a complex result of several interacting factors: production potentials (typical per acre crop yields or indicators of livestock feed efficiency and growth rates), land and input requirements, and biophysical resource qualities (Smil, 2000). Many studies have shown that with the right conditions and management, low-input and organic systems can have yields, productivity, and economic returns that are comparable to conventional systems (Liebman et al., 2008; Posner et al., 2008)."

Source: Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture, "Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century", National Research Council, 2010, p. 207, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12832.html

Profitability of US Farm Sector

Another NRC factoid:

" Statistics on the aggregate profitability of the U.S. farm sector disguise considerable variation in the economic performance of individual farms. For example, in 2007, only 47 percent of all U.S. farms reported positive net farm income, a drop from 57 percent of all farms in 1987. Most farms that lost money were relatively small operations that relied principally on nonfarm sources of income. Most farms in the United States are essentially family businesses that rely mainly on farm family members for their labor force (Gasson and Errington, 1993; Hoppe et al., 2007), and the majority of farm families also gain income from off-farm work. Nonfarm work or transfer payments are commonly used to supplement income from the farm business. The proportion of farm operators who work off-farm increased from 44 percent in 1979 to 52 percent in 2004. The proportion of spouses working off-farm grew from 28 percent to 45 percent during the same period (Fernandez-Cornejo et al., 2007). The contribution of off-farm income to the total household income of U.S. farmers rose from about 50 percent in 1960 to more than 80 percent in 2004 (Fernandez-Cornejo et al., 2007)."

Source: Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture, "Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century", National Research Council, 2010, p. 68, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12832.html

Current state of small and mid-size farms

Another factoid from the NRC/NAS report:

" The mid-sized family farms (sales between $100,000 and $500,000) are examples of the prototypical “family farm” that has captured much of the public imagination and public policy debates over the future of American agriculture (Browne et al., 1992). According to the 2007 census, these mid-sized farms represented just under 10 percent of all U.S. farms, produced 16.5 percent of all farm sales, and managed another quarter of the nation’s farmland and nearly 30 percent of its cropland.

" Small and mid-sized family farms together owned two-thirds of the total value of farmland, buildings, and equipment and managed roughly 60 percent of all U.S. farmland and cropland in 2007."

Source: Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture, "Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century", National Research Council, 2010, p. 49, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12832.html

Local food markets account for a small but growing share of total U.S. agricultural sales

From USDA's Economic Research Service Report "Local Food Systems:
Concepts, Impacts, and Issues":

• Direct-to-consumer marketing amounted to $1.2 billion in current dollar sales in 2007, according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, compared with $551 million in 1997.
• Direct-to-consumer sales accounted for 0.4 percent of total agricultural sales in 2007, up from 0.3 percent in 1997. If nonedible products are excluded from total agricultural sales, direct-to consumer sales accounted for 0.8 percent of agricultural sales in 2007.
• The number of farmers’ markets rose to 5,274 in 2009, up from 2,756 in 1998 and 1,755 in 1994, according to USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service.
• In 2005, there were 1,144 community-supported agriculture organizations, up from 400 in 2001 and 2 in 1986, according to a study by the National Center for Appropriate Technology. In early 2010, estimates exceeded 1,400, but the number could be much larger.
• The number of farm to school programs, which use local farms as food suppliers for school meals programs and promote relationships between schools and farms, increased to 2,095 in 2009, up from 400 in 2004 and 2 in the 1996-97 school year, according to the National Farm to School Network. Data from the 2005 School Nutrition and Dietary Assessment Survey, sponsored by USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, showed that 14 percent of school districts participated in Farm to School programs, and 16 percent reported having guidelines for purchasing locally grown produce.

Feedlot cows produce more methane than pasture cows

As more researchers work to understand where ghg emissions occur in ag practices, we can begin to parse growing practices to determine which have a lower carbon footprint.

Environmental Health Perspectives posted recent research, Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change, that does some of this parsing by combining the results of various related studies.

Here are some emerging facts from that article:

1. "Animal agriculture sector accounts for approximately 9% of total CO2 emissions, which are primarily the result of fertilizer production for feed crops, on-farm energy expenditures, feed transport, animal product processing and transport, and land use changes (Steinfeld et al. 2006)."
2. "Burning fossil fuels to produce fertilizers for feed crops may emit 41 million metric tons of CO2 per year (Steinfeld et al. 2006)."
3. " Farm animals and animal production facilities cover one-third of the planet's land surface, using more than two-thirds of all available agricultural land including the land used to grow feed crops (Haan et al. 1997). "
4. "Typically, cattle confined in feedlots or in intensive confinement dairy operations are fed an unnatural diet of concentrated high-protein feed consisting of corn and soybeans. Although cattle may gain weight rapidly when fed this diet (Pollan 2002), it can cause a range of illnesses (Smith 1998). This diet may also lead to increased methane emissions."
5. And this: "The standard diet fed to beef cattle confined in feedlots contributes to manure with a "high methane producing capacity" (U.S. EPA 1998). In contrast, cattle raised on pasture, eating a more natural, low-energy diet composed of grasses and other forages, produce manure with about half of the potential to generate methane (U.S. EPA 1998)."
   

So feedlot cattle appear to produce twice the methane as pasture due to the diet. I assume this does not include the any methane from fertilizer or feed growing practices.

The first response seems obvious: eat less meat. The counterpoint is that we need protein. We can of course grow more pasture beef, but at current consumption habits we would have to expand land use for cattle quite significantly if we consume meat at current levels. Also, as health efforts (partially) succeed in getting us to reduce our red meat consumption in this country, as economic progress grows in developing nations, particularly China and India, meat consumption increases potentially negating any ghg reduction we have accomplished.

Ugh. So what can we do?

Since the climate is a global issue the pathway forward needs to incorporate global, national, and local concerns:

1. Reduce feedlot cattle consumption everywhere.
2. Increase the production of pasture beef.
   
1. Which also decentralizes manure production and reduces the necessity of using fossil fuels to create fertilizers, and then transport them to buyers.
   
3. Generate large consumer awareness programs in developing nations that as they turn their diets towards more red meat consumption that they request pasture beef.
1. Other research shows that pasture beef has more omega 3 fatty acids than feedlot beef (will get source).
   
4. Encourage trade policies that incentivize the production of low carbon meat.
   

Secondary source (primary sources in brackets, available in article): Koneswaran G and Nierenberg D, Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 116, Number 5, May 2008, www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/11034/abstract.html