These visualizations highlight some main findings that can be gleaned from the Resource Requirements of Food Demand (RRFD) data product. They also highlight ways to analyze the data by different dimensions such as time, supply chain stage, marketing channel, or food and beverage category.
More than one quarter of U.S. freshwater use is linked to the food system. Both U.S. food system employment and energy have comparatively lower shares of their total national resource use.
U.S. food system employment, energy, and water use vary by supply chain stage. The food-services stage accounts for a substantial share of both employment and energy used throughout the food system. The majority of food system water is used on the farm for crop production, but water is also used in downstream stages.
There is evidence of interdependencies between food, energy, and water. Water is used in energy production for cooling at thermoelectric plants, for example, and energy is used for food in the form of agricultural inputs, refrigeration, or electricity in retail stores.
There are varying resources linked to food and beverage categories. For example, the “bakery products” category is a consistently high-resource user compared to other food and beverage categories. Each category's resource use is dependent on both the production requirements and quantities purchased by U.S. consumers.