Local food spending benefits economy

Portland, Oregon’s Ecotrust just released an economic analysis that researched the impact of farm to school spending across the state’s economy and found that “Investing in locally produced foods for the school lunchroom fortifies the state’s economy with dollars previously spent elsewhere.”

The research focused on two public school districts that were part of a controlled study “to test the impact of proposed ‘farm to school’ policies currently being debated in the Oregon Legislature.” From the report:

• ” For every food dollar spent locally by the two school districts, an additional 87 cents was spent in Oregon, generating a multiplier of 1.87 for farm to school spending.
• ” The analysis revealed that dollars spent in Oregon agriculture reverberated into 401 of 409 of the state’s economic sectors.”