Multi-objective planning for food production in a mountainous region: Strategic land utilization for meeting food demand and economic revitalization

The mountainous landscapes and significant decline of predominate industries have made the North Central Appalachian (NCA) region vulnerable to economic shocks. Given the rugged terrain that hinders large-scale industrialization, community-supported food production can be a sustainable solution to help meet food demand and revitalize regional economy. This study evaluated the potential of strategic utilization of arable land in a mountainous region to increase niche crops production and revenue. Using West Virginia as a study area, current food production shortages were estimated to be -47% to -100% for all 30 crops. A novel multi-objective planning function that considers land slope, crop diversity, yield and sale price was developed and applied to reallocate existing and expandable arable lands for increased food production. Accessibility, a numeric measure determined by the land slope and traversable road networks, was used to delineate availability of arable lands, and the accessibility values (0.816-0.999) of the expandable arable land suggests high accessibility. Results showed that demand for horticultural crops can be extensively met (potential/demand = ∼39) by restructuring the cropland; whereas field crop gaps can be slightly (i.e., 0.6%) reduced with the addition of expandable land. The analyses yielded a surplus production of horticultural foods while increasing crop diversity, and showed immense potential for economic revitalization. The methodology developed in this study and the results could be used to leverage regional policymaking to significantly reduce food shortage and to enhance economic revival in the NCA and similar regions.