Foodshed Analysis

Foodshed analysis is a spatial method for understanding where a population's food comes from, or could come from, by analogy with a watershed: just as a watershed delineates the land that drains to a river, a foodshed delineates the land area capable of feeding a given population centre. Christian Peters, Nelson Bills, Jennifer Wilkins, Gary Fick and Arthur Lembo formalised the modern, spatially explicit version in 2009, mapping potential foodsheds in New York State by matching geographically distributed agricultural production capacity to the food demand of population centres and allocating supply by proximity. The result quantifies how much of a region's food needs could be met locally — its localization capacity and self-sufficiency — and which land areas would supply which cities. Foodshed analysis has become a core tool for assessing the feasibility and sustainability of regional and local food systems.