By Tom Nordlie | IFAS News
Florida sales of local food accounted for $8.3 billion in economic activity for a one-year period during 2011-12, University of Florida researchers have concluded after analyzing a statewide consumer survey.
The study is the first of its kind in Florida, said Alan Hodges, an Extension scientist with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Hodges and colleagues collected and analyzed data from 1,600 households to develop local-food sales projections for Florida’s total population of households.
“We were actually surprised at the volume of local food that is moving, especially through retail grocery stores,” Hodges said.
Almost three-fourths of the total estimated revenue — $6.1 billion –- was spent on local food at retail grocery stores, according to the study. Consumers also spent $1.8 billion at farmers’ markets, roadside stands and U-pick businesses. Restaurants and other food-service establishments accounted for $320 million, and prearranged farm-to-consumer sales, including community-supported agriculture, totaled $103 million.
The study, “Local Food Systems in Florida: Consumer Characteristics and Economic Impacts,” is available on Hodges’ website, at http://tinyurl.com/byyyqla.
This study is part of a larger project investigating ways of connecting farmers and consumers, conducted with funds from a specialty crops block grant obtained by the UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources. In this study, personnel from the PIE Center helped analyze the survey responses.
The specialty crops block grant was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Hodges received additional money from UF’s Office of Sustainability and the Alachua County, Florida Sustainability Program to increase the number of survey respondents.
Hodges and post-doctoral research associate Thomas Stevens headed the economic impact study. They mailed a survey to 7,500 households throughout the state, Hodges said. About 1,600 responses came back, each providing information about the household, as well as residents’ local-food purchasing habits and preferences.
The researchers took the responses and used a regional economic analysis computer software program called IMPLAN to develop projections for the total amount of economic activity statewide in the local-food sector. The survey was mailed in mid-2012 and asked respondents to report their purchases for the previous year.
About two-thirds of respondents said that someone in the household purchased local food from at least one market channel.
Among the households where local food was purchased, 62 percent obtained it at farmers’ markets, 53 percent bought local food from retail grocery stores, 28 percent ordered it in restaurants, and 5 percent bought local food through community-supported agriculture or another prearranged transaction between farmer and consumer.
The total spent on local food averaged $1,114 per household, Hodges said. That number was somewhat higher in Central and North Central Florida, compared with South Florida or the Panhandle.
Participants were asked to use their own definition of “local” for the survey, and were asked to specify the geographic area they consider local by indicating one of five possibilities that ranged from “your city or town” up to “the Southeastern U.S. Region.”
“There is no accepted definition of local,’” Hodges said. “But probably the most common is that the food was produced within 100 miles of the consumer. That was also the definition that was most often given by respondents in the survey. ”
He acknowledged that the study may include data on sales of food that some people wouldn’t consider “local,” because the products traveled too far to reach consumers. Letting respondents use their own definitions was thought to be a respondent-friendly approach.
Overall, the study indicated that about 20 percent of all Florida food purchased for at-home consumption, except restaurant take-out food, is local, he said. Prior estimates from studies in other states had put the figure around 5 percent, Hodges noted.
“We are doing relatively better in Florida, in moving toward food self-sufficiency,” he said. “I can only attribute that to the favorable year-round growing conditions we have for fruits and vegetables.”
