Regional Self-Reliance

Volume 2 addresses the current and potential capacity of New England to source its own food. Our analysis measured regional self-reliance (RSR), an estimate of the region’s production of food commodities compared to its consumption of those same commodities. The concept of regional self-reliance is akin to thinking about the portion of the national food supply that is domestically produced. On a weight basis, New England produced about 21% as much food as it consumed between 2010 and 2019 . To be clear, this does not mean that the region supplied 21% of the food New Englanders ate because some of this food left the region to be consumed elsewhere. The regional self-reliance percentages varied widely from food to food, showing a rather lop-sided capacity for self-reliance. A small number of foods were produced in large quantities relative to consumption and had selfreliance ratios near or exceeding 100% (e.g., cranberries, lobster). Most foods, however, had self-reliance ratios of less than 10% (e.g., beef, lettuce, wheat).

Total Food Production Sales, 2022

Regional Self-Reliance By Food Group

Agriculture Land Required for Meeting Resilient Eating Goal by 2030

Regional Self-Reliance for Vegetable Sub-Groups

Regional Self-Reliance for Protein Sub-Groups

Current Plant- and Animal-Based Foods Grouped by Regional Self-Reliance

Note About Connecticut Maps: Although Connecticut has not had county governments since 1960, county boundaries have historically been used to depict data. For example, all USDA Census of Agriculture data for Connecticut is collected at a county-level. In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau shifted to using Connecticut's nine planning regions as county equivalent geographic units for data collection. This has presented a challenge for depicting data for Connecticut's planning regions in Tableau. This mapping challenge has not been resolved yet, but when a solution is available, we will update Connecticut maps.