The New England Good Food Vision 2060

Healthy Food and Sustainable Farming

How much food could New England really produce? We hear a lot about the virtues of “eating locally,” “food

security,” and a “regional food system,” but what might that really look like on the ground?

To get at this question we look fifty years into the future and ask, if New England were to do about as well as we can

imagine at providing its own food through sustainable farming, what might we best grow here? We make some

straightforward calculations based on a set of simplifying assumptions. This provides not a prediction of where we

will go or a plan of how to get there, but a broad vision of what is possible.

First, we draw a boundary around the six New England states and ask what could reasonably be grown and consumed

within that boundary, and what would still need to come in from outside. No real food system would operate exactly

like that, of course, but it works well for purposes of calculation and for illuminating the fundamental challenges and

opportunities we face.

Then, we apply the following assumptions for 2060:

1) We assume modest population growth from the current 14.5 million to 17 million, which follows from current US

Census projections to 2030. We also assume New Englanders will remain a mostly urban and suburban population,

and that any continued movement of people to rural areas will follow a more clustered, “smart growth” pattern than

we see today.

2) We assume New Englanders will eat in a healthier way, closely following the 2011 USDA and Harvard Public

Health guidelines. That means much more “nutrient dense” vegetables and fruits, and a sharp reduction in empty

calories and red meat consumption.

3) We assume that energy will cost much more than today, and that we will be working hard to reduce our carbon

footprint. We assume significant climate warming, but make no attempt to project exactly how much.

4) We assume a sustainable approach to agriculture in an exacting sense of that term—that is, farming that is

designed to yield not just cheap commodities, but a broad range of social and environmental benefits.

5) In particular, we assume that agricultural expansion will be constrained by the parallel social and environmental

benefits of maintaining a mostly forested landscape (New England is over 80% forested today). We use the

framework of the ambitious Harvard Forest “Wildlands and Woodlands” proposal, which calls for 70% of New

England to be conserved in permanent (largely sustainably harvested) forest—about 50% of Southern New England,

and 75-80% of Northern New England.

This would still leave room to triple the amount of farmland in New England from 2 million to 6 million acres,

returning about 15% of New England to agriculture by 2060. That is close to where farmland stood in 1945 or even

in 1910—a largely “pre-oil” era in which farming within the region provided a much larger part of the food for a

mostly urban population. We could in theory clear even more land if we had to, but it would be increasingly marginal

farmland and would come at a rising environmental cost.

Given a land base of 6 million acres and 17 million New Englanders to feed, we envision six major building blocks

of a sustainable New England food system—one in which we concentrate on those crops that do best in our region,

and that provide the greatest environmental and health benefits from being grown locally. [Note: Preliminary

Figures—NOT FOR CITATION WITHOUT PERMISSION]:

1) New England could produce the great bulk of its own vegetables and about half of its fruit, and from that

fruit a significant portion of its own beverages. This would require a little more than 1 million acres: about

500,000 acres devoted to green, orange, red, and starchy vegetables; 350,000 acres devoted to fruit (notably apples,

cranberries, blueberries, and possibly grapes); and 300,000 acres devoted to beans (which would also replace some

meat in the diet). While much of the fresh produce might be intensively grown on small acreages near cities, some

field crops such as potatoes and other root crops, winter squash, and beans might be grown in rotation with hay and

grain on more diversified rural farms.

2) New England could once again produce the great bulk of its own dairy products, and alongside that most of

its own beef, almost entirely on grass (with some supplemental grain). This assumes dairy consumption about as it is

today, but beef consumption cut to one-third what it is now. Most of the farmland reclaimed from New England

forest would be devoted to hay and pasture, for which our soils and climate are well suited. This defining element of

our pastoral landscape might require more than 4 million acres: about 1.8 million for dairy cows and 2.2 million for

beef, plus something for sheep and goats.

3) That would leave about half a million acres of cropland that could be devoted to some combination of grain

for direct human consumption, grain for livestock feed, or oil crops such as canola, sunflower, or soy which

could provide protein meal for stock feed as well. We could grow about half of our grain for direct human

consumption (flour, pasta, beer, and so forth), for example; but in that case there would not be much left for feed or

oil. Grain and oil crops in whatever combination could be grown mostly in rotation with hay.

4) New England could produce the great bulk of its own pork, chicken, turkey, and eggs. These animals could

be integrated into grazing systems without requiring much additional pasture acreage, as most of their feed doesn’t

really come from grass. Pigs could also forage in woodlots without impacting more than a few hundred thousand

acres of the New England forest. However, the feed grain requirements of these animals would amount to almost

two million additional acres, which is probably far more than New England could supply. But importing grain

(presuming it comes from sustainable farms elsewhere) is one very effective way to import fertility into intensive

grazing systems.

5) A restored and thriving regional fishery would be another crucial building block of a sustainable New England

food system. Seafood is a very healthy and attractive form of protein, but restoring a healthy fishery that could

provide the level of fish consumption that USDA recommends may be an even more daunting task than clearing 3 or

4 million acres of forest and farming it sustainably.

6) Enhanced regional ‘good food’ production would promote a more equitable food system, promote job

development, and provide greater access to healthy foods and promote health among New England citizens.

These simple calculations (to be detailed in the report) lead to two equally important though contrasting conclusions.

First, it is highly unlikely that New England could ever produce all of its own food. We will probably continue to

rely on substantial imports of grain, vegetable oil, peanuts, sugar, tropical fruit (especially citrus and bananas), wine,

coffee, tea, chocolate, and spices. But that is not a bad thing. It makes us a cosmopolitan as well as a regional food

culture, and underlines our responsibility to connect to and support sustainable agriculture in other places.

But second, we can grow far more of our own food in New England in a sustainable way, and reap enormous social

and environmental benefits in the process. It appears we could reasonably grow at least one-half of our food

(measured by acreage required) within the region to help maintain a very rich, diverse, and healthy diet. In the event

of more dire scarcity in world food supplies or prohibitively high energy costs, by developing a thriving regional

food system we would have the capacity to produce even more of our own food—perhaps as much as 4/5—by

adopting diets with even less animal protein.

In our view, that is what “eating locally” in our region really means: not trying to grow everything close by, but

concentrating on those crops which make the most sense and yield the greatest social and environmental benefits,

while also increasing our capacity to meet an uncertain future. That would be a tremendous achievement.