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Identifying Spatial Clusters within U.S. Organic Agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Cheryl Brown

    (Division of Resource Management, West Virginia University)

  • Daniel Eades

    (Community, Economic & Workforce Development, West Virginia University)

Abstract

The market for organically produced products has experienced rapid growth in recent decades; however, this growth has not been distributed evenly across the country instead concentrating in certain regions. Employing measures of spatial concentration and association we identify those counties in which organic production is clustered or represents a proportion of the agricultural economy greater than what would be expected by national trends. Results show that spatial clustering of organic agriculture does exist based on data from the U.S. Census of Agriculture on organic farms, acreage, and value of sales. Counties with the largest location quotients for organic production were most often located in the western U.S., especially California, Washington, and Oregon, the Great Plains states, New England, and in some cases, select counties within Mid-Atlantic States. Organic production clusters as measured by the local Moran’s I statistic followed a similar pattern, clustering primarily in the western U.S. with additional High/high clusters found in the Great Plains, upper Midwest, and areas of New England. When these values were adjusted to represent organic agriculture’s share of a county’s total agriculture, central cluster counties were most likely to be found in New England. Results describing the correlation between organic support establishments and production within identified clusters suggest that organic operations in California and New England may be following different marketing strategies that promote or reduce the likelihood of identifying input-output relationships within these clusters.

Suggested Citation

  • Cheryl Brown & Daniel Eades, 2006. "Identifying Spatial Clusters within U.S. Organic Agriculture," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-10, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
  • Handle: RePEc:rri:wpaper:2006wp10
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    File URL: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/rri_pubs/97/
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Olivier Chanel & Laurence Delattre & Claude Napoléone, 2014. "Determinants of Local Public Policies for Farmland Preservation and Urban Expansion: A French Illustration," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(3), pages 411-433.
    2. Marasteanu, I. Julia & Jaenicke, Edward C., 2014. "Clusters of Organic Operations and their Impact on Regional Economic Growth in the United States," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170336, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Fertő, Imre & Csonka, Arnold, 2017. "Válság- és agglomerációs hatások a magyarországi sertéstartásban [Crisis and agglomeration in Hungary s pig production]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 105-122.
    4. Chen-Fu Lu & Chia-Yi Cheng, 2019. "Impacts of Spatial Clusters on Certified Organic Farming in Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-13, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    organic agriculture; spatial clusters; spatial concentration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • P28 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Natural Resources; Environment

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