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Counting Our
Food Miles
by Wendy Priesnitz
For many of us,
our food is better traveled than we are. According to the WorldWatch
Institute, in the United States, food typically travels between 1,500 and
2,500 miles from farm to plate, as much as 25 percent farther than in 1980.
For some people, this modern long-distance food system offers unparalleled
choice. But it often runs roughshod over local cuisines, varieties and
agriculture, while consuming staggering amounts of fuel, generating greenhouse
gases, eroding the pleasures of face-to-face interactions around food and
compromising food security. And recent heightened concerns over global
warming, compounded by food poisoning scandals linked to contaminated pet,
poultry, and pig food ingredients from China, have many of us thinking about
where our food comes from…that is, counting our “food miles” (or
kilometers.)
In our quest for
permanent dietary summertime, in mid-winter we eat strawberries that have been
flown in from warmer climates and make our own nasty little contribution to
the greenhouse gas emissions flood that is irrevocably harming our ecosystem.
Even food grown locally can rack up a lot of food miles. The carrots you buy
at the grocery store could have been transported from the local farm to be
packaged at a distant central depot and then sent back to be sold near where
they were produced in the first place. Also, because of the way the food
processing industry works, ingredients travel around the country – and
beyond – from factory to factory, before they make their way to your local
store. Some of this has to do with comparative labor costs. For example, some
British fish is now sent to China (where labor costs are much lower) for
processing, then sent back to the U.K. to be sold. For the same corporate
reasons, it is often impossible to buy in-season locally grown garlic in a
grocery store because the shelves are full of garlic that has been grown more
cheaply in China or elsewhere. Unfortunately, this transportation factor may
even offset the positive environmental effects of organic farming, according
to a 2005 study by the journal Food Policy.
The food miles
equation is a complicated one, depending on many factors. Distance isn’t
always the only factor, since a long journey by boat, for example, has less
environmental impact than a shorter one by road or air. Also to be considered
is the negative environmental impact created by many trips by personal cars to
supermarkets or farmers’ stalls, compared to that of a few truck loads to
neighborhood stores that can be easily accessed by walking or biking. Even the
amount of traffic – and therefore highly polluting starts and stops – one
encounters on the drive to the supermarket or countryside must be considered.
Beyond that,
transportation is only one component of the total environmental impact of food
production and consumption. In fact, any environmental assessment of food that
consumers buy needs to take into account how the food has been produced and
what energy is used in its production. According to a report by the U.K.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it is, for example, likely
to be more environmentally friendly for tomatoes to be grown in Spain and
transported to the U.K. than for the same tomatoes to be grown in greenhouses
in the U.K. requiring electricity to light and heat them.
Quantifying all of
this is difficult. Researchers at the Iowa State University-based Leopold
Center for Sustainable Agriculture attempted to use a complicated formula to
compare the impact of selling locally grown produce versus conventionally
handled – and therefore well-traveled – produce. In a report entitled Checking
the Food Odometer, they found that conventional produce items traveled
from eight to 92 times farther than the local produce to reach their points of
sale, and that the average food mile – or “weighted average source
distance” (WASD) – for locally grown produce to reach markets was 56
miles, while the conventional distance was 1,494 miles, nearly 27 times
further. In 2005, using the same WASD methodology, Toronto researchers Stephen
Bentley and Ravenna Barker compared food purchased at the Dufferin Grove
Farmers’ Market and a nearby supermarket and reported the results in Fighting
Global Warming at the Farmer’s Market. They compared transport
distances, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from seven locally
produced items and equivalent imported items. They found, for example, that
carrots from California traveled 59 times further than carrots sourced from a
nearby farm. While a half kilogram of local lamb generated seven grams of
carbon dioxide through transportation, the same quantity of fresh New Zealand
lamb yielded over eight kilograms.
One way to help
consumers through this dilemma of calculating the effect of their food
purchases is to have mandatory country of origin labels, known as COOL. In the
U.S., COOL was incorporated into the 2002 Farm Bill as a way of protecting
American consumers from mad cow disease and other threats from imported food.
It was never implemented, at least partly due to lobbying by corporate
agribusiness, the large supermarket chains and trading partners like Canada,
Mexico and Australia. However, some groups are now lobbying for the
implementation of COOL as a way to measure the environmental impact of food.
Sweden seems to be
on a more useful track with its recent announcement of the creation of a new
label for “climate- friendly” foods. Beginning next year, Swedes will be
able to choose food according to the impact its production and transportation
methods have on the climate. “It’s unlikely that a product that has been
transported by plane would be called climate-friendly, for example,” says
Jessica Elgenstierna, spokeswoman for the Swedish food consumer organization
KRAV, which is behind the scheme.
The U.K. has also
started down the path of putting “carbon labels” on products. The
supermarket chain Tesco has said it will label every product in its stores.
The Carbon Trust, a government agency, has already produced a prototype label
and is trying it out on shampoo, fruit juice and potato chips. The U.K.’s
largest organic certification agency, the Soil Association, says it is
considering refusing to certify produce that has been imported by air; other
options under consideration are a selective ban, labeling and carbon
offsetting.
Sustainable/local
farm product certification is also underway in Canada. A new Toronto
organization called Local Flavour Plus is developing standards by which it can
certify farmers and processors and then link them with local purchasers. To be
certified, farmers and processors much employ sustainable production systems
that reduce or eliminate synthetic pesticides and fertilizers; avoid the use
of hormones, antibiotics, and genetic engineering; and conserve soil and
water. They must also provide safe and fair working conditions for on-farm
labor, provide healthy and humane care for livestock, protect and enhance
wildlife habitat and biodiversity on working farm landscapes and reduce
food-related energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions through energy
conservation, recycling, minimal packaging and local sales.
As the Local
Flavour Plus standards suggest, there are more benefits to eating locally than
climate friendliness Farmers who are selling to a local market are more likely
to diversify production, making it easier to farm sustainably. Preserving
local farm economies is another motivation. The Maine Organic Farmers and
Gardeners Association estimates that by encouraging Maine residents to spend
$10 per week on local food, $100,000,000 will be invested back into farmers’
pockets and the Maine economy each growing season.
Presuming that one
manages to identify both locally produced foods and sources for purchasing
them, for those of us living in cold climates, their exclusive consumption can
make it a challenge to eat a balanced diet. But thousands of people are taking
up that challenge, inspired, in many cases, by Alisa Smith and James
MacKinnon, a Vancouver, British Columbia couple who decided in 2005 that for
one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles
of their apartment. Their adventure caught the fancy of the media around the
world and led to the launch of a website, a book and dozens of other 100-Mile
Diet projects, eat local challenges and organizations promoting local food
systems.
Yes, local food
might be more expensive than the alternative, due to a variety of government
subsidies like price supports, tax breaks and trucking/road infrastructure
subsidies. But its price is a more accurate representation of its cost of
production…and worth every penny in increased personal, community and
environmental health.
This
essay first appeared in Natural
Life Magazine, November/December 2007
copyright (c) Wendy Priesnitz 2008
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