The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future is undertaking a detailed, multi-year project, Exploring Maryland's Agriculture, Food and Public Health Landscape, to study all those facets and more using geographic information systems.

CLF is an interdisciplinary research organization that supports pre-doctoral research for students at Johns Hopkins.

The purpose of the project is to establish a new resource that brings together information from disparate sources that collectively can strengthen the understanding of local food systems and how they work.

"Using GIS in food system work has been done for a little while," said Amanda Behrens, research program manager for the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future who oversees the project. "Looking at food in a geographical way is hot these days."

The idea began with a pre-doctoral fellow who studied food sources in Baltimore as part of a community food assessment. The student visited each store and gave them a score based on types of food offered and wanted to map the locations.

In the past, food system mapping was done in urban areas. Behrens is taking the idea out to the state level to look more broadly at food sources. She will be able to work with organizations such as the Maryland Department of Agriculture.

Phase one of the project involves creating an accurate snapshot, or map, of the current food system in Maryland. Locations with specific addresses as well as aggregate information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau will be combined. Regional data on transportation routes, land use designations and nutritional health data, such as rates of diabetes and obesity will also be included.

The largest portion of time will be spent gathering information on individual locations, Behrens said.

The project raises many barriers to overcome. When locating community gardens in Baltimore City, some are operated by Extension, while others are operated by the city.

Behrens started with websites such as Local Harvest, Maryland's Best and county sites to locate farms. Harford County has a large list of farms on the web, which skews the information, making the county appear to have more farms than others.

She is working to include all types of farms, not just those listed on direct marketing websites, and points out that specific farm addresses will not be used in the project for privacy purposes.

Intended map users are the agriculture community, social service and advocacy organizations, policymakers and researchers.

In addition to using GIS to make maps, the tool can also be used to analyze data, allowing a user to search for locations based on geographical criteria.

"Within the school, CLF receives many requests for information for use in diabetes intervention," Behrens said. The project would allow individuals or groups to tailor information to suit their needs.

For instance, meat processing facilities could look at where meat producers are located when deciding where to build a new facility, Behrens said. Other potential uses are farmers and distributors, who could identify distribution routes that are underutilized, or the Maryland Food Bank, which could determine whether current food drop-off sites are reaching communities in need.

The goal is to place the information online eventually for users to search. By the spring, Behrens hopes to take the information on the road to share with experts, such as Maryland Cooperative Extension personnel.

Post your comments »