Greater Philadelphia Food System Study

Study Advisory Committee Part 1

DVRPC is currently undertaking a study to evaluate the Greater Philadelphia Food System. This study will look at a broad range of food supply issues, such as agricultural production trends, natural resource constraints, processing and distribution facilities, the origins and destinations of food imports and exports, and the efficiency of transporting from farm to plate.

DVRPC's planning area consists of nine counties - Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania; and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties in southern New Jersey. For the purposes of this project, DVRPC's nine-county bi-state planning area will constitute the population base, while a 100-mile "foodshed," comprising of 70 counties in five states, makes up the production base of metropolitan Philadelphia's Food System.

One objective of this project is to evaluate opportunities for increased local production and consumption of food given rising fuel and food costs, and competing global marketplaces. Another objective is to inventory, summarize, and build upon the important work of, and compelling studies authored by, many different organizations and government agencies already committed to these issues.

This project is funded by DVRPC's work program.

Scope of Work Presentation, originally presented on 6/5/2008 [4.2M .pdf]