ABSTRACT:

We derive annual, intranational food flow networks for the United States using the Freight Analysis Framework version 4 (FAF4) database29. The derived networks are for different food sectors and include all metropolitan areas in the United States. The FAF4 database consists of annual commodity flows during 2012-2015 for 115 geographic areas in the United States and 43 different sectors. We focus on the following four food sectors in the FAF4 database: crops, live animals, animal feed, and meat.
To obtain food flows for all metropolitan areas in the United States, we disaggregate the FAF4 database from 115 to 329 areas (Supplementary Fig. 4), out of which 284 are metropolitan or combined statistical areas (120 metropolitan and 164 combined statistical areas). The disaggregation is performed using different socioeconomic and agricultural-related variables as attractors of supply and demand.

For more details see:
Gomez, M., Mejia, A., Ruddell, B., Rushforth, R., 2021. Supply chain diversity buffers cities against food shocks. Nature 595, 250–254 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03621-0