High Tunnel Agriculture

4. High Tunnels for Local Food Systems: Subsidies, Equity, and Profitability.

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This paper discusses the economic impact of high tunnels on the local food movement across the country, in particular the USDA Seasonal High Tunnel Initiative.  The takeaways are that the high tunnel program increased access to this technology for historically underserved (HU) producers; but did not increase access in HU communities.  High tunnel growers were more successful in areas near metropolitan centers with high concentrations of grocery stores and already established local food markets.

The authors identified Alaska as adopting the greatest number of high tunnels from January 2010 to December 2013 (n=513) followed by Missouri and Michigan.  Latitude was a strong biophysical predictor of high tunnel adoption, which was why Alaska had so many high tunnels.  [This could be for several reasons – the rural nature of Alaska, high dependence on imported food, or need to extend the short growing season.]  In addition, to examining economic factors, the authors conducted a survey of 65 Virginia high tunnel growers, the majority of whom worked with NRCS.  In Virginia, it was common for high tunnel growers to operate multiple high tunnels throughout the year.  In addition, they found there was a greater proportion of high tunnel operators that were female (41%) than compared to other agricultural operations (12-17%).  The Virginia high tunnel growers grew vegetables, fruits, and cutflowers.  “All grew vegetables, fruit, or both, and 65% also grew herbs and/or cut flowers” (Foust-Meyer and O’Rourke 2015).  High tunnels growers who worked with NRCS to subsidize a high tunnel, were likely to work with them again or purchase a high tunnel on their own; i.e., “owning a high tunnel was a strong predictor of owning multiple high tunnels”.

An important conclusion of the paper was that high tunnel adoption may not do much to alleviate food insecurity in HU areas and may be more accessible to higher income, urban areas.  [But perhaps does much to alleviate food insecurity for the HU high tunnel producer and their family.]

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