New Mexico’s FoodShed Alliance

By Michelli Murphy | The University of Arizona | March 30, 2009

To get from the farm to your fork, food travels an average of 1,500 miles, based on research from Iowa State University.

If you live in New Mexico, FoodPrint NM is working to shrink that distance and curb climate change in the process.

Figure 1. The FoodPrint NM project (formerly the Alliance for the Carbon-Neutral Foodshed) is a partnership including the University of New Mexico, La Montanita Cooperative, and the Mid-Region Council of Governments Agricultural Collaborative.

Credit: Sustainable Studies Program, The University of New Mexico

Formerly called The Alliance for a Carbon Neutral Foodshed, the group is focused on developing the state’s “foodshed” – the area within a 300 mile radius of urban centers.

The ultimate aim is to boost the local food supply while helping to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, said Bruce Milne, director of the Sustainability Studies Program at the University of New Mexico (UNM).

FoodPrint NM is a partnership between UNM, La Montanita Food Co-op, and the Agribusiness Collaborative of the Mid-Region Council of Governments.

It was formed in response to a 2006 executive order from New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that calls for local organic food to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 11 million metric tons by 2020.

While producing local food with alternative energy—such as solar, wind, and geothermal power—is a long-term goal, organic farming is the only method currently being used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Milne said.

Figure 2. The New Mexico Climate Change Action Group (CCAG) report (2006).
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Credit: New Mexico Climate Change Action Group

Organic farmers add compost and other natural materials to soils, which increase the amount of carbon the soils store over time. Conventional farmers use synthetic fertilizers, which tend to deplete the soils’ carbon content.

Converting one conventional 320-acre farm to an organic farm equates to taking 117 cars off the road—or keeping 1.17 million pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, according to The Rodale Institute, a non-profit research group and working organic farm.

While it’s true that organic farming methods can reduce carbon emissions, for now it’s impossible to measure how effective local food—whether it’s organic or inorganic—is at reducing greenhouse gases, said Steve Warshawer, enterprise developer for La Montanita Co-op.

“There’s an assumption that less food miles means less of a carbon footprint. That assumption needs to be measured and proven,” Warshawer said.

When food doesn’t have as far to go, less fuel is burned in transporting it, resulting in fewer carbon emissions.

But shorter distances don’t necessarily guarantee more efficient fuel use, he said. For example, 40,000 pounds of food on a semi truck may use less fuel per pound of food per mile than 500 pounds on a pickup truck.

Figure 3. The New Mexico Climate Change Action Group (CCAG) report (2006) identified organic farming as one of several cost-effective policy options to reduce emissions in the state.
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Credit: New Mexico Climate Change Action Group

In addition, it is not proven under what conditions the carbon emissions that were avoided during transport outweigh the carbon emitted during production, Warshawer said.

A farm that’s farther away but has more efficient production methods may have a smaller carbon footprint—a measurement of the total impact an activity, service, or product has on the environment in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

No formal method for measuring carbon emissions for local food is available yet.

But creating that accounting system is necessary, desirable, and possible, Warshawer said. “We need to create a carbon report card and establish goals, then do periodic updates.”

The food co-op is the one member of FoodPrint NM that is directly involved in local food production.

About 400 local producers supply the co-op with food that gets distributed to its four New Mexico locations, which serve 14,000 members.

“The co-op’s main focus is in helping mid-size farms from disappearing,” Warshawer said. “It’s where the most diversity, coupled with reasonable economies of scale, can be found. Mediun sized farms and ranches also create jobs, and preserve family farming and ranching.”

The Agricultural Collaborative is also interested in keeping farms up and running. The group’s main goals include protecting agricultural lands and promoting local growers’ markets.

“The collaborative is a whole community effort to increase the viability of local foods,” said Ann Simon, an Agricultural Collaborative representative. “We are looking at ways agriculture can mitigate carbon emissions in the state. The foodshed alliance is a complement to our existing work.”

One of those complementary projects includes the plans for a foodshed school or summer camp, she said. The outreach project will be specifically geared toward children and will teach about food growth from start to finish.

“Growing, harvesting, nutrition, affordability, access, clean energy—any part of the food system is fair game,” Milne said.