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...
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Wendy Priesnitz
is the Editor of Natural Life Magazine and a journalist with 30
years of experience. She has
also authored nine
books. Read
her
blog.