Environmental and Economic Impacts of Localizing Food Systems: The Case of Dairy Supply Chains in the Northeastern U.S.
/Abstract
Localizing food systems has been hypothesized to improve social, economic and environmental outcomes, but knowledge is limited about the impacts of scaling up local food systems to provide a significant proportion of demand for specific products. Employing an empirical model of the U.S. dairy supply chain with a high degree of spatial and product disaggregation, we assess the impacts of increasing localization of Northeast fluid milk supply on food miles, supply chain costs, greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions, and employment. Our analysis comprises comparisons of current Northeast U.S. dairy supply chain (baseline) to two localization scenarios based on state boundaries and multiple-state sub-regions. Our results indicate that even for a product in which the Northeast is largely self-sufficient, localization can increase total distances food products travel (740 to 1,108 miles/month), overall supply chain costs ($369,000 to $728,000 /month), and emissions of greenhouse gases (398 to 652 MT/month of CO2 equivalent) and criteria pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen (2 to 4 metric tons/month) and particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm (0.1 to 0.2 metric tons/month). The impacts of localization on employment and economic activity are positive (1.0 to 4.2 full-time-equivalent positions and $0.7 to $1.6 million/month, respectively), but changes are very small on a percentage basis. Our analyses indicate that the definition used for localization has an impact on outcomes, and suggest that efforts to localize food systems may benefit from a more systems-oriented approach that accounts for inherent trade-offs.
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