Miguel Santistevan

CE 547 – J. Coonrod

Class Project

May 12, 2008

New Mexico’s Food Shed

Abstract

New Mexico can be known for its rich history of agriculture: from indigenous populations, to the Spanish entry and influence, to modern day specialty foods like chile and prolific conventional agriculture such as the dairy industry. In times of climate change and food crises around the globe, the question is often posed if there are sufficient land and water resources to sustain the local population. A GIS analysis of USDA Agricultural Census data for 1997-2002 was performed as the beginnings of a longer term study that will be used to understand the nature of New Mexico’s ‘food shed’ and the potential of existing (and future) agricultural infrastructure to provide for the population of the state.

Objective

The objective of this study is to use the tools available in GIS to analyze the character of New Mexico’s agriculture with regard to the types of crops grown in each county, the acreage in those crops, and the environmental conditions associated with those counties. The kinds and amounts of different crops for each county is of interest to understand the nature of crop diversity in each county; and the environmental conditions, including precipitation, evaporation, and other potential environmental factors (soils, irrigation augmentation to moisture regime, elevation, slope, etc.) will be of interest to determine appropriate crops for particular environmental conditions. The ultimate objective of this analysis will be to understand the nature of crop diversity in the individual counties with regard to their environmental conditions and to be able to determine how their agricultural production could be shifted, based on the acreages of particular crops, to maximize diversity in a manner that is appropriate and optimal given those environmental factors and constraints.

Methods

Base maps were obtained from RGIS (rgis.unm.edu), including county seat locations, state, and county boundaries. Precipitation and evaporation isopleths were also obtained from RGIS. The data for crop production was obtained from the USDA 2002 and 1997 Agricultural Census Data (available at www.nass.usda.gov/census/census02/volume1/nm/index2.htm).

Results

To determine the nature of New Mexico’s ‘food shed,’ road miles from Albuquerque to the various County seats was determined using the distance tool in ArcView. The importance of this calculation is to determine how far food would have to travel from the various counties to be able to sustain the population of Albuquerque (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

To understand the trends in agricultural production across the State of New Mexico, data was analyzed to determine the change in harvested acres from 1997-2002. This information is related in Figure 2 and gives an indication of which counties are gaining and losing acreage in agriculture.

Figure 2.

In order to standardize the trends in agricultural production for the various counties, and analysis was performed to determine the amount of acreage gained or lost per acre of 1997 production. This information is related in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

To visualize the spatial relationships of vegetable production across the State, a map was created that relates the harvested acres in vegetables in 2002 (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

To begin the analysis of environmental data for the counties of New Mexico, maps of precipitation and evaporation were generated and rasterized (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Conclusion

This project represents the beginnings of a lengthy and ongoing analysis that is required to understand the nature of New Mexico’s food shed with regard to crop diversity and environmental variables. From these preliminary results, it was found that most counties in New Mexico are losing agricultural acreage except for six counties (Catron, Santa Fe, Lea, Sierra, Otero, and Union) who are experiencing agricultural increases to varying degrees.

Future Work

Indices of environmental characteristics will be determined from precipitation and evaportation coverages for each county. The existing crop diversity for each county will then be related to environmental indices to analyze the cropping strategies for the counties. Vegetable production data was used for this initial analysis that will have to expand to all major commodities produced in the counties (maize, wheat, sorghum, etc). Precipitation data will have to be augmented with irrigation data to account for the moisture regime potentially available to crop production in the various counties.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Bruce Milne and Sustainability Studies for the conceptual inspiration and direction in this project.