Author
Klaiber, H. Allen
Local food offerings differ within and across school districts with farm-to-school programs. Using two waves of nationwide data, we estimate the relationship between two supply chain indicators— local foodshed size and length of local food supply chain—and districts’ local food expenditures. We find that increasing foodshed radius by 50 miles and sourcing from intermediaries increases the average district’s local spending by 8% and 26%, respectively. Districts’ actions to increase student access to local foods by widening definitions of local or sourcing through intermediaries thus have the potential to reduce localized benefits to nearby farmers and community members.
While local food production plays an increasingly prominent role in U.S. agriculture, there is growing concern about oversaturation. Using a national dataset, we identify locational attributes that are conducive to the establishment of direct-marketing operations and assess competitive behavior. Our model links firm-entry decisions to market size using reduced-form profit functions, which are characterized by the cost of agricultural land and demand variables. We find significant heterogeneity in the required population to support direct-marketing entrants and show that markets become perfectly competitive upon entry of the third direct-marketing establishment, with heterogeneous market potential for new entrants.