Food and Agriculture Mapper and Explorer

The Food and Agriculture Mapper and Explorer (FAME), funded through an AMS cooperative research agreement, brings together data from dozens of publicly available datasets to make it easy for food systems practitioners to search and visualize up-to-date information about U.S. local and regional food systems.

Background

Starting with the goal of improving data access and utilization by food system stakeholders, the Local and Regional Food Systems (LRFS) Response to COVID project team worked with partners to aggregate data from primary and secondary sources, identify gaps in existing LRFS data, and develop the FAME data dashboard.

FAME is an open-access resource designed to increase the accessibility of local and regional food systems data for federal grant applicants, farmers and food entrepreneurs, and researchers. The dashboard improves data access to more comprehensive information on local and regional food systems and contains tools for planning and evaluation that will help stakeholders respond to future food systems disruptions.

The raw data that underpins FAME is available in a data warehouse hosted on a GitHub site, allowing more advanced analysts and researchers to pull the information in more curated ways. Farmers, food entrepreneurs, and members of the public can use FAME for program design, business planning, grant writing, advocacy, or to learn more about the state of local food systems in an area.

Website Resources

For questions, please contact:

Annelise Straw
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service
Email: annelise.straw@usda.gov