ROOM AT THE TABLE - Intersight - University at Buffalo

Local Growing
Capacity Analysis
Economic Impact
Analysis
Erie County cropland could produce 113,000 tons of food products
By national food supply standards, the population of Erie County would require 840,000 tons of food each
year; currently, Erie County is 12 percent self­reliant
Erie County is more self­reliant in particular foods:
Most self­reliant food group is dairy (29 percent)
Second most self­reliant food group is meat (16 percent)
Least self­reliant food groups are grains and fruit (5 and 3 percent, respectively)
If people ate the federally recommended dietary allowances (RDA), Erie County would also need a larger
supply of food; self­reliance would be 10%
If RDA were met, the county­wide food supply would need to increase to 1.1 million tons of food annually
If the land currently used for agriculture was reallocated according to RDA yields, Erie County could produce
a total of 199,000 tons of food annually. Self­reliance would increase to 18 percent
Based on 2009 total sales, food sectors in Erie County sold $10 billion worth of goods
Food distribution: 44%
Food processing: 35%
Food production: 21%
Disposal: 0.5%
By increasing 20% total demand for fruits and vegetables with current rate of local purchase, the total output
equals close to $1 billion dollars
By increasing 20% in demand and doubling local purchase for fruits and vegetables, the economic impact
would be $2 million dollars
If additional food manufacturing businesses were introduced, accounting for 20% of local sales, $12 million
dollars and create 63 new jobs would be generated
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