Estimating Biological Capacity for Grass-Based Ruminant Meat Production in New England and New York.

Meat production is a minor agricultural enterprise in the Northeastern United States. However, increasing interest in local food production and on-going challenges posed by drought and fire on Western rangelands give reason to believe that the importance of Northeastern grass-based ruminant meat could grow in the near future. The present study quantifies current and potential biological capacity for grass-based ruminant meat production in New York and New England – part of a project exploring supply chain barriers in the region. We first summarize the spatial distribution of hay, pasture, and livestock production from the USDA Census of Agriculture, and then use land cover data from the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) to develop high resolution statistical models of land suitability for agriculture and grass production within the region. Regression tree analysis of CDL land cover categories as functions of soil and terrain properties show that the most important predictors of the location of cleared farmland for the date range 2009-2016 were the National Commodity Crop Productivity Indices (NCCPI) and the Non-Irrigated Capability Class (NICC). Eighty-two percent of current agricultural land cover has NICC of 1, 2, or 3. Roughly half of this land is perennial grassland (pasture and hay), which is skewed toward sites with lower NCCPI, more limited NICC, and higher slope. To estimate potential productivity of a grazing-based system, we model pasture yields as a function of NCCPI using linear regression. Modeled potential production is then related to current livestock production in the region. We conclude that there is high biological potential to expand grass-based meat production in the region. Future directions will include use of process-based modeling to evaluate the temporal dynamics of this production potential, which will serve as input for a supply chain model of the grass-finished beef sector.