cultivating possibilities how many could be fed?
Approximately 4,400 acres in Northampton are currently farmed. In addition, potential sites for food production across the four districts described above include an estimated: • 1,000 acres of open lawns • 100 acres of college and other school grounds • 300 acres of land around businesses and institutions • 25 acres of large roofs in the downtown area • 950 acres of open fields • 8,000 acres of forest for livestock browsing and nut crops A total of 10,375 acres could be turned into new sites of food production to increase Northampton’s capacity to supply its own food. Using both conventional and alternative cultivation strategies where appropriate, the total acreage of existing farms and potential sites of agriculture—14,775 acres, approximately half the size of the town of Northampton—could have a significant impact on the city’s food security. How many people could be fed annually if these acres were in food production depends on many factors, including particular site conditions, cultivation methods, the composition of diets, the timing of planting and harvesting, and the types of crops and animals raised. Christian Peters, of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University, has studied foodsheds and the amount of land needed to support local food production. His research, focusing on New York State, has involved calculating per person land requirements for 42 different diets and correlating these results with the currently available agricultural land in the state (Peters et al. 2007). He and his co-researchers have determined that, depending on the amount of meat and fat in the diet, there is a five-fold difference in the per person annual land requirements of the various diets, from 0.45 acres per person for a low-fat vegetarian diet to 2.13 acres per person for a diet high in fat and 12 ounces of meat per day. (The average American, Peters reports, consumes over 5 ounces of meat per day [Peters et al. 152].) The assumptions of the study include conventional agricultural methods on lands conventionally understood to be appropriate for farming; five months of fresh food per year and seven months of food from storage; and a mix of crops that currently can be grown in New York, using conventional methods.
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Feed Northampton Cultivating possibilities