A Local Food Prospectus for the Tri-State Region has just been released by the Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, East Central Intergovernmental Association, Atten Babler Risk Management, and the Tri-County Economic Development Alliance. The Prospectus concludes that it is feasible for Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin to scale up produce production for wholesale markets and compete with other fruit and vegetable producing regions such as California and Mexico. However, this would require a coordinated regional voice for policy changes, mitigating risk for producers, strengthening of markets and aggregation, increasing production knowledge, and addressing the shortage of skilled labor.
The analysis explores the viability of scaling up the produce industry by capitalizing on local and regional food trends and economic opportunities afforded by a local wholesale produce industry. Wholesale production is the focus of the study since this is where the greatest amount of economic opportunity is found.
The Tri‐State region has over $100 billion of untapped potential for local food production. Currently, the region’s agriculture primarily focuses on growing row crops, namely corn and soy beans. Many of these crops are shipped outside of the region for non‐food uses. Local food production tends to bring in more profit per acre to producers while also working towards stabilizing the local economy against rising food prices, politically‐driven federal crop subsidies, and changing weather patterns. Research has conservatively found that local food production could create over $2 billion in annual revenue and 9,397 new jobs within Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin just by meeting seasonal produce demand.
The Local Food Prospectus for the Tri-State Region is a great resource for people interested in agriculture, local foods, and economic development. The report is available on the Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission website: http://swwrpc.org/wordpress/project-produce/.
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For more information, or to schedule an interview, please contact Victoria Solomon at 608-342-6005, or email her at v.solomon@swwrpc.org.
