This article in today's NYT highlights new research that shows that locally produced food in some instances may actually be more energy intensive than food imported from hundreds or thousands of miles away. While this may surprise many environmentalists, it shouldn't.
A lot of factors contribute to the total energy/carbon footprint of food, and the distance the food travels is only one dimension. But there are many other reasons to question the "local is always better" logic.
For example, importing grains can be an amazingly efficient way for areas lacking in water to conserve water resources. Dried grain is light, doesn't require refrigeration, and is nutritious. Areas like the Midwest that receive lots of rainfall are great areas for grain production, while deserts in California are not.
There is an added dimension as well. Many developing countries rely on agricultural exports to generate foreign currency so that they can buy medicines, cellphones, clothes, and all sorts of goods that help them improve their material standard of living. If everyone in the developed world suddenly stopped importing their food, they would be further impoverished.
None of this is to suggest that food miles are not something to be conscious of, but they aren't the only thing. One of the insights from economic analysis is always to focus on the root of a problem, because of the law of unintended consequences. If energy consumption or carbon emissions is the real problem, then policies aimed directed at energy or carbon costs are the best way to address the issue, not a secondary dimension such as food miles.
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Comments
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wayneluke Posted 7:03 am
06 Aug 2007
For foods I enjoy that get imported from further distances like Bananas, coffee, tea and chocolate. I always buy organic fair-trade items.
It requires thought. Something many people really don't want to do. They want black and white with easy clear cut decisions instead of having to think about each thing they purchase.
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GreenEngineer Posted 8:02 am
06 Aug 2007
That said, I would like to make a couple observations.
Most of the "eat local" buzz I hear is directed at consumer choices, not (yet) at policy. While reducing energy or carbon is a good target for policy, those elements are usually hidden from the consumer (often deliberately). So the consumer must, of necessity, look at secondary indicators. Of those, food miles is far from perfect, but is pretty good if it's applied with some common sense.
Also in the context of "eat local buzz", most of the focus seems to be on vegetables, fruits, and meat. These are high value products, often perishable, not commodities like grain. And perishable foods are worth prioritizing for localization, because the energy cost for maintaining a controlled climate during shipment (or warehousing) is substantial.
It's also worth noting that eating locally means local in time, as well as in place, i.e. eating seasonally. This is obviously easier to do in California than in, say, North Dakota, but it's worth keeping in mind wherever you are. Possible negative health impacts aside, there is no environmental downside to seasonal eating.
Aside from a few extreme localvores, I don't think anyone is suggesting that they should get all their food from nearby. And many of those more extreme folks are doing what they are doing as a form of personal practice, or to demonstrate that it is possible, rather than as a prescription for others.
Which brings me to my real point: I think the "eat local" movement is, for the most part, at the stage of increasing awareness and getting people to think about what they are eating, rather than just following immediate convenience or advertising. And in that respect, I think it's an unmitigated good.
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:13 am
06 Aug 2007
We're talking one product - New Zealand lamb - and one importer - the UK. And guess who the study was done by? New Zealand researchers. As McWilliams himself says, the researchers were probably "responding to Europe's push for food miles labeling."
Several more criticisms of the thesis in the NYT article: McWilliams makes his arguments based on cheap fuel and fertilizer, not wise assumptions with peak oil and climate constraints on the horizon. To keep cheap transportation networks going, he resorts to the Tinkerbelle defense: "hybrid engines and alternative sources of energy."
He seems to have missed the fact that large economic entities are the powerful players in the food business, and especially in long-distance systems. Local production, in contrast, tends to favor small farmers and businesses.
It is much easier to have knowledge and control one has over food produced locally, vs that produced on the other side of the globe. The FDA has trouble even monitoring the safety of imported food to the US. How could they or any agency reliably assess the environmental impact of food grown in China ?
There are many other reasons for buying food locally besides food miles. One reason that has been important for most of history (e.g. during wars) and will probably be important again is food self-sufficiency.
The number of people "obsessing over food miles" is miniscule. The dominant paradigm is still: factory farming - supermarkets - junk food - ignorance and unconcern about food miles. ...which isn't to say the Life Cycle Analysis is not a useful tool.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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OsoEco Posted 8:33 am
06 Aug 2007
For example, if a farmer uses water in an arid area to grow organic produce (fruits & veggies) for local residents, is that better than conserving water resources and not growing produce, thus local people have to buy their fruits and veggies from Chile or somewhere it takes a lot of resources to transport?
What is the hierarchy of natural resources? Are we first to look at natural resource preservation and then decreasing CO2 emissions, or should we be decreasing energy consumption, building sustainable communities, then conserving natural resources, etc.
What is the community's opinion of that? I sure don't know.
Discuss amongst yourselves... :)
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jtholmes Posted 9:28 am
06 Aug 2007
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Green Granny Posted 10:37 am
06 Aug 2007
The key no matter where you live, is what our grandparents and great-grandparents had without much intellectualizing: mindful moderation. They had a concept of "enough", of "plenty", and a seemingly unconscious way to measure the pros/cons/implications of choices. Thrift was their way of life and they knew how to recognize and enjoy a luxury when they saw/enjoyed it -- like chocolate.
I am sure that with enough water, heated enclosures, genetic engineering and other high-resource expenditures, we could force bananas or coffee or rice, etc to grow in Ohio. But would that make any sense?
Trade is something humans have engaged in, even over quite large distancea, since caveman days. Can't we rediscover ways to trade without destroying the planet? And aren't the real issues about the wasteful and destructive and non-common-sensical ways some foods are grown, harvested, and then transported?
I absolutely and religiously buy from local farmers only those agricultural products that grow well, naturally, in Ohio. And I ride my "old lady" bike to procure them as much as possible. And I also feel truly fortunate to enjoy my cup of coffee, or rice, or banana, etc. from time to time (or daily even).
Why are we complicating everything? Have we all really lost touch that much?
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Ghandi
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spaceshaper Posted 11:24 am
06 Aug 2007
Rules of thumb:
Find a vendor you can trust if you don't want to do all the research yourself. Perhaps your local coop.
Locally-owned grocery stores are much more likely than national chains to have the flexibility to buy local produce in season and to give you straight answers about their sourcing policy.
High-mileage perishables are much more likely than dry goods to have been air-freighted and thus have a higher carbon footprint per mile traveled.
It's not just food. Half the flowers sold in the world are flown to the Amsterdam wholesale market before they travel on to your local grocer or florist. Buy local flowers too!
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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nedruod Posted 1:12 pm
06 Aug 2007
It's too bad there isn't a system to estimate environmental costs and present you with an adjusted price. Something like $5 local cost + $3 H20 vs $3 store cost + $6 CO2.
trackback: http://ryan-technorabble.blogspot.com/2007/08/cheaper-is- ...
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kmp Posted 2:10 pm
06 Aug 2007
I live in New York - naturally I don't get fresh corn in January. Nor do I get local chocolate or bananas. That does not mean I forgo these things, necessarily, but it does mean that I take advantage of the seasons to buy the best, freshest, tastiest food that I can buy, and I do it mindfully, selecting organic farmers who are committed to sustainable vegetable/fruit harvest and humane meat/dairy/egg production (such as it can be). I also enjoy out-of-season or exotic foods as a luxury, not an everyday practice... have we come so far from an orange in the Christmas stocking as a luxurious treat?
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amazingdrx Posted 9:32 pm
06 Aug 2007
Buy strawberries from a local grower then make your own freezer jam. Instead of buying berries that have no taste and are grown on raw sewage irrigation water from a big box store.
Pretty soon you start to notice when and where locally grown foods are available in your area.
On a food like bananas: I stopped eating them because they made me sick. Picked green and overcooled in ships and trucks they were not only tasteless and never ripened, but seemed to have more subtle illhealth effects. Chemicals or are they just dead food that never ripens? Or some sort of GMO product?
Yep, some stuff needs to be transported, like coffee and chocolate, but it can be imported honestly.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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odograph Posted 12:14 am
07 Aug 2007
I made a little list, which I might as well drop here. It has to do with the efficiency of various shipping strategies.
A small farmer bringing vegetables to market in an old pickup truck might move a ton of goods 10 miles on a gallon of fuel. If that.
One gallon of fuel moves a ton of goods 59 miles by tractor-trailer.
One gallon of fuel moves a ton of goods 202 miles by rail.
One gallon of fuel moves a ton of goods 515 miles by inland barge.
One gallon of fuel moves a ton of goods 1,043 miles by container ship.
So, as a rational engineer I'm not going to make a blanket globalize or localize argument ... but I'm going to ask anyone who does to show me their numbers.
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odograph Posted 12:20 am
07 Aug 2007
And I think that will shake out differently in different communities. Those lucky enough to be live right in near farms (or backyard growers) will have much lower energy costs associated with genuinely local (neighborhood) food.
Those of us living in a sprawl have to wonder how far 'local' food has really come.
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gmunger Posted 1:32 am
07 Aug 2007
Your graphic makes a good thought exercise, but does it really encompass the complexity of the topic?
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odograph Posted 1:46 am
07 Aug 2007
(For each of those things you calculate, and show your math, you don't assume that local is better.)
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gmunger Posted 1:56 am
07 Aug 2007
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odograph Posted 2:37 am
07 Aug 2007
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:51 am
07 Aug 2007
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odograph Posted 3:21 am
07 Aug 2007
this looks similar
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odograph Posted 3:23 am
07 Aug 2007
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odograph Posted 3:36 am
07 Aug 2007
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willa Posted 3:46 am
07 Aug 2007
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:58 am
07 Aug 2007
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gmunger Posted 5:37 am
07 Aug 2007
Food that I buy from a local producer is food that I, and everyone in my community (including the framer) have a stake in. I don't want widespread pesticide use in my community. I don't want huge livestock feeding operations that pollute local water in my community. And when the producer is in my community, the community and I can much more easily know what is going on out on that farm. And the community and I can hold them accountable. How is that not an environmental argument?
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gmunger Posted 5:41 am
07 Aug 2007
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spaceshaper Posted 5:59 am
07 Aug 2007
Option 1
Ton of produce hauled by truck from farm to warehouse in S. California
40 miles @.12lbs/mile = 4.8lbs CO2
Ton of produce hauled by semi-trailer from warehouse in S. California to warehouse in North Carolina
2500 miles @.11lbs/mile = 275lbs CO2
Ton of produce hauled by truck from NC warehouse to supermarkets
40 miles @.12lbs/mile = 4.8lbs CO2
Option 1 total farm to fork 284.6lbs CO2 per ton of produce
Option 2:
Ton of produce grown in NC, hauled by van to farmer's market & local supermarkets in same county:
40 miles @.19lbs/mile = 7.6lbs CO2
Option 2 total farm to fork 7.6lbs CO2 per ton of produce.
Consumer-miles-from-store assumed to be the same in both cases.
Put your ton of produce on a train across the continent and you can reduce the total for Option 1 to "only" 60lbs of CO2, 8X that of the local product instead of 40X. Except nobody does that.
Do we even want to think about what the air freight numbers might look like?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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OsoEco Posted 5:59 am
07 Aug 2007
Probably in some big city since my local small city economy would have folded without local people supporting local businesses, thus I'd find myself to be like the majority of Americans, buying crappy quality produce from all over the world.
Nobody's mentioned health issues yet. Isn't that a factor? Isn't eating fresh better for everyone? Could someone add health insurance data to the numbers?
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:28 am
07 Aug 2007
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odograph Posted 6:35 am
07 Aug 2007
Perhaps you live someplace in which a farmer does send a fully loaded ton in a pick-up 40 miles. That would be great, though I estimate that the loads I see at farmer's markets are more like 1/4 ton, and as often luxury items as staples.
The question is not whether a particular farmer at a particular market can beat a particular cross-country trip (why didn't use use a train for that leg?).
The question is whether the "200 mile rule" is really true for most people, in most US cities, most of the time.
Anyone know how to answer that? If not, why did the rule precede the proof?
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kmp Posted 9:11 am
07 Aug 2007
From http://www.slowfoodusa.org:
SEND TO: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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var l=new Array();
var output = '';
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