Quantifying US metropolitan level environmental burdens & benefits from greater localization of vegetable farming

Bibliographic Data

ID15544470
AuthorsPeter Nixon (0000-0003-3047-8884, Princeton University, corresponding author), Anu Ramaswami (0000-0002-0476-2315, Princeton University)
Year2025
Volume20
Issue12
Pages124043-124043
Publication date2025-10-23
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/ae1622
OpenAlexW4415467898
LanguageEN
References cited33

Several US urban food action plans propose increasing local and regional vegetable production for the presumed environmental and nutritional benefits. However, such efforts, if applied nationwide, can propagate environmental benefits or disbenefits to other geographies that have not been previously evaluated. Our paper quantifies the environmental benefits and disbenefits at the metropolitan scale nationwide from various localization scenarios ranging in scope (e.g., meeting 25%–100% of local vegetable dietary demand through local production). For the first time, these localization targets are modeled nationwide with consistent methodology across 378 metropolitan areas, considering three different land reutilization scenarios: (1) shifting current commodity cropland to vegetables, (2) leveraging marginal urban land, and (3) a novel strategy of repurposing parking lots and roads, anticipating the future deployment of shared autonomous vehicle fleets. These scenarios, implemented nationwide, diffusing current, concentrated vegetable production, are evaluated in the context of land availability constraints and two critical environmental burdens: groundwater overdraft and fertilizer-related PM2.5 emissions. Broadly across the conterminous US metros, scenarios find few significant land constraints and reveal net environmental benefits to both groundwater overdraft and fertilizer-related PM2.5 emissions in 11%–55% of metros (scenario-dependent). The model also reveals where relocalization of vegetable farming would exacerbate existing environmental vulnerabilities. Such spatially disaggregated nationwide urban agriculture localization models can inform environmentally friendly urban agricultural planning across US metro regions

Agriculture · Commodity · Context (archaeology · Food security · Land use · Metropolitan area · Overdraft · Scope (computer science · Urban agriculture · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access