One hesitates to agree with Ron Bailey given his doctrinaire libertarianism, but in a somewhat narrow sense I think he's right about this: in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, food localism is a red herring.
That is to say: Eating local out of concern over carbon emissions is misguided. Food travel is not a big part of America's collective emissions or most individuals' emissions. And miles traveled is not always a reliable indicator of emissions -- hothouse vegetables grown locally may be responsible for more emissions than traditionally grown veggies flown overseas.
Building regional, human-scale food networks has considerable merit -- social, economic, and culinary (taste) benefits. But foodies should push for such networks on the basis of those benefits, and not try to piggyback on broader concern over climate change. It will allow folks like Bailey to toss out the baby with the bathwater.
Make the kids pay: The economic effects of climate change on future generations
Ask Umbra on her hotness, corporate gift baskets, and more
Ask Umbra on bike helmets
Comments
View as Flat
Bart Anderson Posted 9:50 am
17 Nov 2008
But it's a a complicated issue, and requires more than cherry-picked studies from libertarians to make sense of it.
I would not describe Ronald Bailey as being on the cutting edge of environmental awareness. It was only recently that he finally accepted global warming. The main citation in his article is from work done at Mercatus Center, a well funded think tank that lobbies for deregulation, especially environmental deregulation.
If you look at some of the researchers in the UK who seem to have done the most work, they point out that "food miles" is indeed a big deal, but it's only one of many factors.
See for example: All About: Food and fossil fuels (a CNN video that features Tim Lang of City University London, the UK researcher who came up with the idea of "food miles").
Another good source of information is Food Climate Research Network. For example, a slideshow on Food and Climate Change by Tara Garnett. She writes (slide 45) that food miles represent 2.5 to 3.5% of GHG emissions for the UK.
In slide 46, she writes: What about air freight?
The most GHG intensive form of transport
Less than 1% all food carried by air but = 11% total food transport CO2 (including car trips)
1.5% fruit and veg carried by air but accounts for 40% total f&v transport CO2
Kenyan green beans 20-26 times more GHG intensive than seasonal UK beans A general problem with discussions such as these is that they only deal with climate change, leaving out peak oil, local resiliency and politics.
To be fair, food systems are complicated and "food miles" is a first-approximation of reality. However, eating ethically is not that complicated:
* Eat lower on the food chain (plants versus animals)
* Avoid processed and junk foods.
* Eat in-season produce (vs strawberries in winter).
* Favor local agriculture.
* Don't waste food.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
Permalink
Sam Wells Posted 12:34 pm
17 Nov 2008
But wait, a real carbon/CO2 analysis forces us to take a look at the inputs to what went into those apples. If you had an organic apple farm that re-used hay and manure, avoided using fertilizers and tractors, and used disease and pest resistant strains, gosh, wouldn't that count for something?
Perhaps the life cycle concept is just not there.
And then let's look at these apples themselves. The ones packed overseas require significant amounts of cardboard boxing, containers, and pallets. Don't all imports have to be gassed, inspected, and then ripened or given chemical to not ripen? All that adds up, right? Now let's count how many apples spoiled before getting to market, and thus had to be turned into juice or thrown away. Something tells me the loss rate is higher with the longer transportation distances.
Fundamentally, if I walk out in my backyard and pick an apple and eat it, isn't that the most efficient model of all?
I think what the right answer, muddled as it may be for CO2 emissions, is price: you'll pay more for a domestic, organic apple, plain and simple. I wouldn't give up just because of somebody comparing a farmer's truck to a shipload of a million of the suckers. -sammie
Onward through the fog
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:05 pm
17 Nov 2008
Yeah, of course.
It's not just the fuel use for transportation, It's the corruption of multi-level corporate growing, transportation, and marketing. The total human and environmental degradation of global agribizz.
Then there is the combination of local growing and local energy production. Non-GMO, non-corporate, local food and energy..and organic fertilizer? Snapshot analysis doesn't describe symbiotic systems.
You have to add in more than GHG from fuel to calculate the earth crushing footprint of the corporate food system.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
listenupgirl Posted 11:32 am
18 Nov 2008
In his article, Bailey argues that "Food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that food should be grown where it is most economically advantageous to do so," and goes on to cite the example of growing bananas in Costa Rica rather than Iceland. He also argues that if we removed trade protections and imported food from developing countries, we would be "helping lift millions of people out of poverty." I can't imagine a more tragically misguided statement than that last one.
I studied in Costa Rica for a semester, and worked with a professor who's done extensive work documenting the evils of banana plantations. I met a little girl who suffered from tumors that covered part of one leg, most likely because of the long hours her mom put in around all the pesticides and nematocides on the banana plantation when the girl was still in vitro. People there put their health, even their lives at risk every day to work on plantations like that, and they still live in poverty, because they are paid per pound of production, rather than by the hour, and most are afraid of joining unions.
The doctrine of comparative advantage (part of the neoliberal economic paradigm promoted by organizations like the World Bank and IMF), which Bailey describes in that quote above, is why Costa Rica is now a nation that exports bananas and pineapples at great costs to the health of its people and its environment, and actually imports staples like rice and beans, which it used to grow itself.
All this to say that I agree with David: there are much greater reasons to eat locally than this notion of "food miles." So let's reframe the debate. But still I don't know what would change the mind of someone like Ronald Bailey, if he thinks that importing food could lift people out of poverty.
Permalink