A Land-Based and Spatial Assessment of Local Food Capacity in Northern Idaho, USA

Abstract

Across the United States, there has been a growing interest in local food production, which provides an alternative way to increase self-sufficiency and support greater well-being and food security at the community level. This study focused on the Northern Panhandle region of Idaho, where opportunities derived from the local food movement have emerged in several resort and college towns. This research integrated spatial analysis and modeling in a geographic information system (GIS) environment and a linear-programming (LP) optimization approach to identify, quantify, and map these potential opportunities. The obtained results show that existing local food producers are located in the urban fringe and on productive cropland. The foodshed model further suggests that Northern Idaho has enough farmland to feed its whole population within an average distance of 49 km or 31 miles. An alternative land use scenario was explored that involves removing marginal cropland with high soil erodibility from commodity cropping to improve the ecological benefits of local food production. The results of the study, including nuanced evidence of growing demand for local-food products, the existence of enough cropland capacity to meet demand, and potential environmental benefits, are quite encouraging to local food advocates in Northern Idaho and other areas and demonstrate the utility of land-based foodshed analysis.

Cultivated Land Use Layout Adjustment Based on Crop Planting Suitability: A Case Study of Typical Counties in Northeast China

“…Socio-economic factors are important factors considered in land use quantity optimization, which are mainly reflected in the guiding role of regional grain production [22], inputoutput [23], and net income [24] in the optimization. Land evaluation is often used as one of the key processes for land use space optimization [25], including land suitability evaluation, land quality evaluation, land ecological evaluation [26], etc.…”

Measuring the Impacts of Community Innovations: the Little Free Farmstand in Geneva, New York

“…To increase community health and well-being, community developers may turn to local food system development to solve food insecurity (Deller et al 2017). Liao et al (2019) write "The question of how to increase food security and community well-being may find an answer in local food" (p. 122). This manuscript asserts that little free farmstands, as part of local food systems, may have the potential to improve but likely not solve food insecurity in communities.…”

“…In 2012, Peters and colleagues highlight that local food in the State of New York could meet two-thirds of the state's food needs (as cited by Liao et al 2019). This manuscript describes one local food approach in a small, urban community situated in a rural region of New York.…”

What would it look like? Visualizing a future US Corn Belt landscape with more table food production

“…Researchers have used visualization tools to create scenarios and influence policy formulation to support local food production. For example, in northern Idaho, GIS was used to assess land use for food production, leading to models that indicated how local food demands could be met and environmental outcomes improved by taking marginal lands out of row crop production (Liao et al, 2019). In other states and cities across the USA, GIS studies have connected food production capacity and consumer food needs within defined urban and peri-urban areas, notably for the state of New York and the City of Boston, MA (Peters et al, 2009; Saha and Eckelman, 2017).…”