children eating school lunch in cafeteria

The True Cost of Food

Alternative mechanisms to support local food procurement by public agencies in NYS

New York state agencies spend over $1.2 billion each year purchasing food.

Under current law, procurement agencies like schools and prisons are required to purchase food from the lowest bidder. But these prices don't reflect the cost of important and expensive externalities like greenhouse gas emissions, nutrition, and job creation associated with local food production, all of which hide the "true cost" of food covered by New York taxpayers.

A new project by Cornell researchers is exploring how modifying procurement practices can be a cost-effective policy proposition. Modifications could lead to gains in several sectors, reducing future fiscal expenditures on curative health care, environmental remediation, and social safety nets. Noncommunicable diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease could also decline while reducing the impacts of climate change, deforestation, excessive water withdrawals, and biodiversity loss, and their enormous associated, and largely unaccounted for, costs.

 

Project Overview

Launched in September 2022, this research study quantifies the true cost of food procured by state agencies in New York and develops a mechanism to transparently adjust procurement bids to account for these costs. The project aims to correct this cost imbalance through three stages of integrated working streams.

school lunch tray
Students at City Honors School in Buffalo, New York, eat lunch on a “New York Thursday,” a weekly effort to promote the foods in the lunches that are grown or produced in New York state.
Photo by Lindsay France, Cornell University

1

Estimate the environmental, health and other spillover costs of food procured by NYS agencies.

2

Develop a framework for adjusting food vendors’ bids to incorporate these multipliers and spillover costs.

3

Engage with NYS agencies and food vendors in implementing true costs in public food procurement.

Latest news

The Cornell Chronicle

Study to unmask the ‘true cost of food’ for NYS agencies

Researchers seek to support New York’s food and agriculture producers by calculating the “true cost of food,” which takes into account hidden costs like climate, environmental, fiscal, health and workers impacts.

School Lunch tray with milk, peas, apple, pasta, roll

Project Team

Mario Herrero
Mario Herrero

Principal Investigator
Professor
Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator, Life Sciences Department of Global Development
Cornell Atkinson Fellow

Man in a black suit smiling at the camera
Chris Barrett

Co-PI
Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management
Professor, Departments of Economics and of Global Development
Cornell Atkinson Fellow

Bradley Rickard
Bradley Rickard

Co-PI
Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management

a man in a gray suit sits in front of a gray wall
Todd Schmit

Co-PI
Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management
Faculty Director, Agribusiness and Rural Development Program
Faculty Director, Cooperative Enterprise Program

woman smiles at camera
Kerstin Damerau

Research Associate, Department of Global Development

woman in greenhouse
Cynthia Mathys

Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships, Department of Global Development & Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability

Nicole Rossi
Nicole Rossi

Communications Manager, Department of Global Development

woman in black suit smiles at camera
Jialu Li

Graduate Research Assistant
Master of Public Administration Candidate, Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy

woman in white shirt smiles at camera
Maria DiGiovanni

Research Assistant
International Development Student, Cornell University

Supported by

Rockefeller Foundation Logo

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