County-level farm share of the food dollar for fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts for the contiguous U.S.: Spatial variation and implications for local food systems

Food insecurity in the United States (U.S.) has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time as the fewest number of farms remain since the introduction modern agriculture. However, small- to mid-scale farms (< $350,000 in annual sales) are being lost at higher rates than those with more than $1 million in annual sales, which have experience growing commodity farm sales for the last two decades. Understanding these trends requires understanding where in the food supply chain value is captured and how continued structural transformations of agricultural value chains impact the economic viability of farms of various sizes. The farm share of the food dollar (FSFD) is a metric that provides insight into the distribution of food expenditures among agricultural value chain actors. However, its application has thus far been limited to state- or national-level comparisons, masking subnational, spatial variations in value capture that influence the viability and resilience of local and regional food systems. This article presents a county-level estimate of the farm share of the food dollar for fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts (FVN) in 2021 for the contiguous U.S. estimated from multiple publicly available data sources. Relative to the United States Department of Agriculture national-level average estimate of $0.388 FSFD for FVNs, county-level estimated values varied widely and ranged between the maximum of $0.088 to values approaching zero (<$0.001). A cluster analysis identified seven clusters with inverse relationships between FSFD values and other structural and economic variables, such as farm size and proportion of cropland in commodity crops. In general, a negative spatial relationship between the presence of commodity row crops and FSFD for FVN was observed. Moreover, lower FSFD values corresponding with counties with larger average farm sizes and declining numbers of farms, and higher FSFD values were associated with higher local farm sales (e.g., direct to consumer, food hub, or wholesale market channels). Although this county-level estimate of FSFD was limited to FVN producers, it provides unique insights into structural challenges faced by smaller-scale producers in the U.S., such as the (lack of) market channel diversity and uneven distribution of (political, economic, and social) power in food supply chains. These challenges have far-reaching implications for producer livelihoods with knock-on impacts on diet-related health of rural communities.