*******
In Fork it Over, I (attempt to) answer questions inspired by my Victual Reality column. Got a question about food and the politics that surround it? Fork it over, by emailing it to victuals(at)grist(dot)org.
Responding to my recent column "The Eat-Local Backlash," reader Steven Schnell of Kutztown, PA writes in to ask: "I have long been perplexed as to the source of the oft-quoted figure for average food miles of 1200 miles (or sometimes 1500 miles). Every food writer in America quotes it. But nobody ever gives a citation. Do you have a specific name/reference for this study? I'd be eternally grateful if you did!"
Such a straightforward question. If only the answer could be straightforward, too!
First, a mea culpa. My piece on the eat-local backlash contains the following sentence: "Way back in 1969, the U.S. Department of Defense performed what remains the only comprehensive nationwide study of the average distance food travels from farm to plate. The study's estimate, 1,200 miles, probably falls well short of the current mark."
A wit once remarked that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. My statement has proven similarly flawed.
For one thing, the much-cited DoD report may well not exist. But a 1969 study of food miles by another government agency -- the Department of Energy -- does, and it puts the number at 1,346 food miles, not 1200.
Ouch. However, my claim that the number "probably falls well short of the current mark" does seem to stand, as I'll explain in a bit.
I have no idea how my brain downgraded the estimate to 1,200 miles, but I do know where I got the DoD bit from. The existence of a 1969 food-miles study by the DoD has been floating around for a while. It appears in an excellent 2002 paper by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future: "How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture" (PDF). The paper contains this sentence: "A 1969 study by the Department of Defense estimated that the average processed food item produced in the United States travels 1,300 miles before it reaches consumers."
Hmmm. The footnote for the sentence leads not to a citation of the study itself, but rather an out-of-print 1981 book from Rodale Press called Empty Breadbasket? The Coming Challenge to America's Food Supply and What We Can Do About It: A Study of the U.S. Food System.
I'm going to try to dig up that book at the library, and I have a call into the authors of the Johns Hopkins study. If they call after I post this, I'll report on the conversation in comments.
So how did I figure out that the real source for the 1969 study was the DoE, not the DoD? I called Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, who probably counts as our most rigorous and careful source of info on food miles.
Rich did a comprehensive look at food-mile studies for his 2001 paper "Food, Fuel, Freeways: An Iowa perspective on how far food travels, food usage, and greenhouse gas emissions."
The only study he knows about that comprehensively estimates food miles nationwide is the 1969 DoE effort. Reader Steven, if you're still with me, the citation for it is: U.S. Department of Energy. 1969. "U.S. Agriculture: Potential Vulnerabilities." Stanford Research, Institute, Menlo Park, CA.
I'm still trying to get my hands on it. Pirog says the study covers processed food, nationwide. He says average food miles have definitely grown since 1969. Since then, the food industry has consolidated dramatically, meaning far fewer small-scale processing facilities, and food imports have exploded.
Pirog himself has studied food miles on fresh produce -- not processed food, as in the DoE paper -- coming into the Chicago terminal market, where it is then distributed throughout the upper Midwest.
On page 13 of his above-linked paper, we find that:
In 1981, produce traveled an average of 1,245 miles by truck from locations within the continental United States to reach the Chicago terminal market. The average distance for produce arriving by truck in the continental United States increased to 1,424 miles in 1989, and to 1,518 miles in 1998. The 1998 estimate is a 22 percent increase in distance over the 1981 figure.
Note well: this can't be compared directly to the DoE study, because it focuses on one region, rather than the whole country, and it looks at fresh produce, not processed food.
On page 9 of the same paper, Pirog does a mini lit review of other studies, each footnoted. Again, all of them are regional, and deal with produce.
Calculations made by John Hendrickson using a 1980 study examining transportation and fuel requirements estimated that fresh produce in the United States traveled an estimated 1,500 miles. Fresh produce arriving in Austin, Texas, was estimated to travel an average of 1,129 miles. An analysis of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service's 1997 arrival data from the Jessup, Maryland, terminal market found that the average pound of produce distributed at the facility traveled more than 1,685 miles. This same study showed the average distance for fruits to be transported was 2,146 miles, while the average for vegetables was 1,596 miles.
What, then, can we conclude? We can say with confidence, I think, that our processed food travels at least an average of 1,346 miles, and our fresh produce in most regions of the country log between 1,500 and 2,000 miles on the road.
Anybody who has info on food miles not covered in this post, please comment.
Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change
Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving
Climate Citizen: Michael Pollan on agriculture and health care
Comments
View as Flat
caniscandida Posted 8:12 pm
22 Aug 2007
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
Permalink
odograph Posted 9:15 pm
22 Aug 2007
Without that, consumer preference for local food should be an improvement ... but what do you actually do in some place like SoCal sprawl?
Do you spurn the supermarket (with its unlabeled mix of local and distance foods), and and travel further to a "farmer's" market? When you get there do you quiz vendors on whether they are jobbers or growers, and the MPG of their van?
A middle ground might be to stick to the local market, but to avoid "obviously distant" foods, especially when they are treats rather than nutrition. Is there a movement for that?
Permalink
justlou Posted 9:49 pm
22 Aug 2007
He asked me, "Are you Mr. ***?" Set back, I said, "Yes." And then he answered, "Why don't you go ask Ralph Nader?"
So, Tom, for some of us older green weenies, the Backlash started a long time ago. Most folks are quit happy not to have a skunk thrown into their "progress" party. Questions such as these just get a lot of folks' backs against the wall and they will react to defend their concept of progress, particularly when they have vested interests in said progress. The problem is that with many of our alternative visions and proposals, we just don't have a lot of alternatives materially or conceptually available to offer and give people a real choice. Isn't this one of our biggest predicaments? We can't tear down without first building up. But we do need to start by weaning the old ways and moving the new to the front teat. There will be some squealing among teat mates in the process and some concealment or confusion of identity among potential front teat mates. This is where the vision thing comes in to help weed out the imposters and usurpers. This going to be a big long struggle over who gets to set the dominant vision of the future. As we have seen, many currently on the front teat are usurping by cloaking the old with a very thin coating of green so we have to remain vigilant and not be fearful of backlash, squealing, biting and kicking.
Permalink
odograph Posted 9:57 pm
22 Aug 2007
I was put off after seeing bins of ice and ocean fish at a local market. Not sure what was up with that.
Permalink
IfOnly Posted 11:05 pm
22 Aug 2007
Permalink
wiscidea Posted 11:45 pm
22 Aug 2007
It is time for sweeping legislation designed to internalize all costs of manufacture and distribution. This would include charging a fee for emitting CO2. I used the word "fee" because Republicans seem to like fees better than taxes. For example, they like user fees for various public services because, in their opinion, only the immediate and direct beneficiary of a service should have to pay for it. Well, manufacturers and distibutors should have to pay for the opportunity to destroy our natural environment. They can decide whether to stop releasing the chemicals, reduce their profit margin, or pass the cost on to the consumer. Then let the market decide whether the service or product is really more valuable than having a planet to live on. Faced with the true cost of services and products, I believe consumers will choose having a planet to live on.
I would like to see a few of the top Grist monkies address this issue as it relates to their areas of interest and expertise. What are the implications of internalizing costs when it comes to food, agriculture in general, different forms of alternative energy, transportation, housing, et cetera? Could it actually solve any major environmental problems? Are there any acceptions? Are there services and products that this should not apply to?
Then we can look at the price of an item when we are trying to decide whether to buy it rather than wondering... how many miles it traveled, were the workers paid a decent wage, did extraction of resources lead to harvesting of bush meat, does it contribute to global warming...
It seems environmentalists are currently fighting a large number of small battles, gaining ground here, losing ground there. They never occupy and secure an area for long, but run off in another direction... nibbling away at problems caused by greed and ignorance. Legislation designed designed to internalize all costs of manufacture and distribution could be the atomic weapon that allows them to seize the high ground and bring their opponents to the negotiating table.
Forward!
Permalink
wiscidea Posted 11:48 pm
22 Aug 2007
Darn typos!
Unless we are discussing whether this is acceptable... any acceptions?
Forward!
Permalink
mkayser Posted 12:58 am
23 Aug 2007
Permalink
Matt G Posted 1:54 am
23 Aug 2007
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 2:28 am
23 Aug 2007
My car came on a boat from Japan.
My clothes, shoes, tools, bike, computer, natural gas, and liquid fuels also originated thousands of miles away. Pretty much everything has come from thousands of miles away. Has anyone done a study to pin down how far all goods travel?
This appears to have gone exponential with the advent of the industrial revolution where things were mass produced in factories and delivered via rail, ship, or barge. We moved from wind to wood to coal to liquid fuels to power these things. What does the future hold (rhetorical question, nobody attempt to answer that)?
mkayser:
I agree. In fact we should go a step further and express the amount of energy used to move food as a percentage of total energy U.S. consumed annually.
Here are a few questions for you, Tom:
What percent of our total energy use is consumed by the engines of the machines used to move food (is it closer to 1% or 30%)? Keep it separated from energy used to harvest, process, refrigerate, etc.
Also find the energy that would be used to grow and deliver local produce (in millions of pickup trucks instead of tractor trailers etc), then express the difference as a percentage of total energy used (long distance-local). I am all for local produce and supporting small farms. You have made numerous reasonable arguments for doing so but this food miles thing has got me curious. Someone will eventually run these numbers, if they have not already. Better you do it than be blindsided with a backlash funded by Cargill.
Wiscedia
"Then we can look at the price of an item when we are trying to decide whether to buy it rather than wondering... how many miles it traveled, were the workers paid a decent wage, did extraction of resources lead to harvesting of bush meat, does it contribute to global warming..."
You are right. What you describe above is what consumers are being asked to do and I don't see it as a very viable game plan.
We are not rational beings by default. We are capable of rational thought but mostly we "feel" our way through life. Although logically, it should make no difference if you charge $10 a gallon for gas and then refund $8 dollars a gallon on every tax return, if you were to do so, people would cut their gas use drastically and send their refund check into the economy as though it were a gift from God, like they do their tax refunds today. Human nature can't be changed, but understanding it should help us channel it.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 3:10 am
23 Aug 2007
I thought this was rather funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i79a1Sr73uw
Permalink
JMG Posted 3:52 am
23 Aug 2007
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
Permalink
rlibby Posted 10:10 am
23 Aug 2007
So the logical answer to the food miles question may be a simple one--far too many!
Permalink
Sam Wells Posted 2:06 am
24 Aug 2007
Then you'll go crazy because the buyers for wholesale goods purchase on the spot market. So if you want the same product, let's say macaroni, and you saved a dime by shopping from California instead of Newark, you'd do that even if you were located in Manhattan. During production of that macaroni, it might have been grown in Nebraska as wheat, manufactured in Chicago, cheesed in Wisconsin, and packaged in California. Sold to the bidder in New York City!
The post lends itself to the Utopian dream that in a perfect world, all your food would be grown right in your own community. It sounds so sustainable and good, with an average food-miles of maybe 100. But in today's multi-modal transportation network, it's just a guess. I do tend to agree that in many cases, such as origination-destination studies, edible food commodities do appear to "go the wrong way" before being delivered to the final market.
Try commodity flow models, USDA edible, dairy, seafood, perishable, and bulk foods, and origination-destination studies. The Volpe Transportation Library and BTS might be a good start. /sammie
Onward through the fog
Permalink
Solar John Posted 4:43 am
24 Aug 2007
Solar John
Permalink
pubwvj Posted 7:27 am
26 Aug 2007
Right now it is too cheap to transport things over long distances because petrol is subsidized. This artificially deflates some prices hurting local producers of all sorts of foods and goods. De-subsidize it and people will buy more locally. That's good.
Of course, this needs to be coupled with a complete overhaul of our tax system. Right now a significant part of your tax dollars are paid out to subsidies. You should keep them and make the decisions in the market place. That will help take the sting out of the rising prices when subsidies are eliminated.
Cheers
-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org
http://NoNAIS.org
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog
http://HollyGraphicArt.com
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 9:18 am
26 Aug 2007
I agree that subsidies tend to hose everything up.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
bhalweil Posted 6:28 am
27 Aug 2007
I'll add a bit more background to the origins of the 1500 mile stat. In Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket (Norton, 2004), I say, "Statistics from several wholesale markets in the United States show that fruits and vegetables are traveling between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometers [roughly 1500 to 2500 miles] from farm to market, an increase of roughly 20 percent in the last two decades."
I cite Rich Pirog's "Food, Fuel and Freeways," as well as a similar analysis for the Mid-Atlantic food system that found food items traveling a very similar distance. In addition, I did my own analysis of what data I could find on how far a loaf of bread, a pound of ground beef, a carton of orange juice and other typical food items traveled, and they also fell largely in the 1500 to 2500 mile range.
In subsequent promotion of Eat Here and interviews on the local food movement, I used "at least 1500 miles" as a short-hand.
The bottom line is that the ecological, social, economic and security benefits of local food remain regardless of whether the average food item in the American diet travels 1000, 1300 or 1500 miles.
Brian Halweil, Worldwatch Institute
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 6:49 am
27 Aug 2007
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
Permalink