Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Dietary Recommendations
Will Impact Agriculture
Jean
C. Buzby and Hodan
Farah Wells
The average American diet falls short of
the daily recommendations for fruit and vegetables
in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans
and in the supporting MyPyramid Food Guidance
System. If Americans adopt diets that more closely
follow the new guidelines, changes in the mix and
quantity of foods produced in the U.S. would be
substantial.
A recent ERS report provides estimates
of the potential implications for U.S. agriculture
if Americans change their consumption patterns to
meet the 2005 recommendations. This straightforward
extrapolation using ERS Food Guide Pyramid Servings
data holds U.S. exports constant and holds the relative
shares of production and imports constant at the
average of 1999-2003 levels. U.S. farmers would
grow more of the produce they grow now, and fruit
and vegetable imports would increase.
If Americans were to fully meet
the recommendations for fruit, they would need to
increase daily fruit consumption by 132 percent.
The additional demand would require U.S. producers
to more than double annual harvested fruit acreage
from 3.5 million to 7.6 million. As part of the
dietary change, daily vegetable consumption would
need to rise by about 31 percent, and the mix of
vegetables consumed would need to change. For example,
consumption of legumes, like kidney beans and lentils,
would have to increase fourfold, and consumption
of starchy vegetables would have to decline by a
third. Accordingly, annual harvested acres of vegetables
in the U.S. would need to increase by about 137
percent, from 6.5 million to 15.3 million, to meet
this new demand. Most of this increase is due to
higher acreage for legumes. Meanwhile, acreage for
starchy vegetables would need to decrease.
These estimated acreage increases
for both fruit and vegetables amount to almost 3
percent of total U.S. cropland in 2002. The additional
acreage would likely come from current high-production
areas or contiguous areas that have similar production
characteristics, such as favorable climate and arable
land.
Eating patterns change slowly
in response to new dietary or medical information,
changing tastes and preferences, and availability
of new food products. Over time, Americans may make
dietary changes that move them closer to the recommended
intakes of fruit and vegetables, moving U.S. agriculture
toward the production levels discussed here.
Servings
of dark green and orange vegetables and legumes
fall below 2005 recommendations |
Food group |
Dietary
Guidelines
recommendations
for a 2,000-calorie diet |
Servings
available in
2003 1/ |
Change needed
to meet
recommendations 2/
|
|
Cups per
day |
Percent |
Fruit |
2.0 |
.9 |
132 |
Vegetables |
2.5 |
1.9 |
31 |
Dark green
|
.4 |
.2 |
175 |
Orange
|
.3 |
.1 |
183 |
Legumes
|
.4 |
.1 |
431 |
Starchy
|
.4 |
.7 |
-35 |
Other
|
.9 |
.9 |
2 |
1 Adjusted
for losses from marketing and spoilage.
2
Computed from unrounded numbers.
Source:
Prepared by USDA, Economic Research Service. |
|