by W.P. Hedden, who was at the time Chief of the Bureau of Commerce for the Port of New York Authority. Hedden described a ‘foodshed’ in 1929 as the ‘dikes and dams’ guiding the flow of food from the producer to consumer. Hedden contrasts foodsheds with watersheds by noting that “the barriers which deflect raindrops into one river basin rather than into another are natural land elevations, while the barriers which guide and control movements of foodstuffs are more often economic than physical.” Hedden describes the economic forces that influence where foods are produced and how they are transported to the cities in which they are consumed. The term has more recently been reintroduced by permaculturist Arthur Getz, in his 1991 article “Urban Foodsheds” in “Permaculture Activist", to provide an image that helps people to understand how food systems work and that suggests food comes from a source that must be protected.
