PROVIDENCE – A new report released June 5 by the New England State Food System Planners Partnership notes that the region has become too dependent on food being exported into the six New England states, including Rhode Island. The report, overall, sets forth a regionwide goal of producing and consuming 30% of New England’s food needs by 2030.
The report, titled “A Regional Approach to Food System Resilience,” was put together in collaboration with multiple state-level organizations across New England, including the Rhode Island Food Policy Council, and Food Solutions New England on how to make the region’s food system more self-reliant. Food supply chains, labor needs and distribution trends are among the report’s focal points.
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Julianne Stelmaszyk, R.I. Commerce Corp.’s director of food strategy, told Providence Business News Tuesday that the state – and New England, as a whole – imports close to 95% of the food the region consumes. It is a significant directional change since the region used to be “much more self-reliant” on producing and consuming food prior to the two world wars, according to Nessa Richman, the food policy council’s network director.
The food shortages associated with those wars set the stage for globe trade agreements and organizations designed to address global public good issues, Richman said. As a result, Richman says multinational food corporations and international trade in food began to rise, which then led to regional infrastructure for food processing, aggregation and distribution going away.
“Overall, the system we have has resulted in lower costs at the grocery store, but increased vulnerability from food supply chain disruptions,” Richman said. Stelmaszyk noted the supply chain disruptions brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, and such disruptions triggered price increases on various food items, such as eggs and flour.
Additionally, wastewater treatment has been noted in the report as the state’s “largest barrier” for expansion of squid processors. Due to these limitations, 80% of Rhode Island squid landings are sent overseas for processing before being reimported, according to the report.
The report also noted that food processing and manufacturing sales within the Ocean State have declined over a 10-year period through 2017. In 2007, sales from food processing and manufacturing were $1.02 billion. A decade later, it dropped to $700 million. Additionally, the report states Rhode Island, which is 7.2% of New England’s population, currently has only 6.6% of food system employment out of the whole region. Also, Rhode Island has only 1.5% of available agricultural land to grow food, hence the need to rely on wholesaling, food services and manufacturing to contribute to the food industry.
Richman says losing processing and manufacturing jobs causes a decline in labor force participation rates and slower economic growth.
“This hits people with lower education levels harder, so the burden of losing these jobs is not distributed equitably,” she said. “To play our role on a regional level, our role is more of creating jobs and maintaining jobs in wholesaling and processing. We’re not going to be able to create more land, but we can create more jobs in those sectors if we invest in those businesses and invest in the infrastructure that those businesses need.”
Across New England, about 290,000 additional acres will be needed to meet the 30% self-produced regional food threshold, according to the report. But with Rhode Island having limited land to grow food, seafood will not only be critical for the state’s part in producing more local food, but it is also important for its blue economy.
Richman says the state’s total gross sales from fisheries are about $600 million. More than 400 fishery businesses employ approximately 3,100 people in Rhode Island, she said. Continued state investments in ports to support the fishing industry will play a major economic role for the state, both Richman and Stelmaszyk said.
“That’s why Rhode Island is such an important part of the regional effort across New England because we do harvest a significant amount of cod, as well as aquaculture,” Stelmaszyk said. “I think it will be an area we can contribute not just to resilience in Rhode Island but also across the New England region for states that don’t have coastlines, such as Vermont.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
