sustainability
4 Sep 2008
Think Global, Eat Global?
Low food miles are not a panacea for environmental problems, and exclusively focusing on them ignores a range of social, health and economic issues surrounding our food consumption, argues Debra Mayrhofer
As food prices, fuel costs and global warming dominate the headlines, "locavores" have been held up as the new eco-warriors. These hardy souls eschew food that isn't produced nearby, and count "food miles" rather than calories. But while food miles are something we need to consider, the complex realities of modern food systems mean that concentrating on them alone can actually work against the principles we're trying to uphold.
Our meals cover thousands of kilometres in their journeys from the paddock to the plate. In Australia, the contents of a typical supermarket food basket have clocked up 70,803 kilometres, equivalent to flitting nearly twice around the circumference of the Earth.
The term food miles — the distance food travels from producers through processors and retailers to consumers — is used to highlight the hidden ecological, social and economic consequences of food production and is the key concept in the locavore movement.
The movement began in 2005 after a Canadian couple, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, decided to reduce the food miles in their lives and committed to becoming locavores, surviving for a year only on produce that was grown near their home in Vancouver. Thus the "100 Mile Diet" was born. The idea took off and there is now a 100 Mile Café in Melbourne. 100 Mile Dieters have sprung up all over the globe, with a 10 Mile Diet subgroup for the truly hardcore.
The New Oxford American Dictionary even dubbed "locavore" the 2007 word of the year, stating that it was the word that best reflects "the ethos of the year" and has "lasting potential as a word of cultural significance and use".
The reasons for eating only locally produced food appear compelling: we can reduce the amount of fossil fuels used in transporting food; we can support and get to know our local farmers and businesses; we can eat healthier, fresher and better tasting food and we can have better food security if we don't have to rely on foreign, potentially unstable, trade partners for such a basic need.
It sounds simple, but what does "local" really mean? For the 100 milers, it is obvious, but so too is the arbitrary nature of their definition. Does local mean that the livestock are only fed on locally produced feed and pellets? That only locally produced pesticides are used? Rather than an objective label, local seems to be a state of mind, and possibly not a very logical one.
The issue of food security is emotionally charged and can lead to irrational policy decisions, according to Saul Eslake, chief economist with the ANZ.
"The use of terms like 'food security' and 'food miles' is dangerous because it encourages policies which are damaging and counter-productive, and more than likely to be a cover for protectionism," said Eslake.
"‘Food security' would be far better served by policies which allowed for freer trade in agricultural commodities between countries; removed distortions that encourage the diversion of land and other resources from food production into economically inefficient and environmentally damaging biofuels production; and discouraged the application of advances in scientific knowledge, most notably the irrational opposition to the use of genetically-modified crops," he said.
While these are arguments that we're used to hearing from the kinds of neoliberal sources that frequently discount the concerns of people keen to make ethical and environmental eating choices, they do raise the wider issue of the complex role of trade in the food security issue. Trade can tie countries together as much as food inter-reliance can expose or compromise them — it depends more on how these relationships are arranged. Likewise, while many people interested in ethical and sustainable eating are aware of the ways "free trade" can lead to some devastating environmental and economic outcomes, there are nevertheless many cases where truly free trade can be a more sustainable option than local production.
Moreover, as Sophie Gaballa, from the environmental group Ceres in Victoria, warns, assessing the sustainability of food production is a complex issue.
"Taking into consideration how far our food travels is only part of the food miles story. To really assess the environmental impact of food items you need to also look at how they are processed and packaged to get a more complete picture of the energy footprint of food systems," said Gaballa.
According to Christopher Zinn of the Australian Consumers Association, the concept of food miles is so fraught with difficulties that it has to be seen as a starting point for looking at issues of sustainability, not as a solution.
"It has been presented as a bit of a feel good concept, which isn't to say that it doesn't have merit in terms of making people think about where their food comes from, but when you try to quantify the food miles, it becomes so qualified as to be unwieldy," he said.
For example, if you try to work out the food miles on a packet of muesli, which might have more than a dozen separate ingredients, you need to include the journeys made by each ingredient as it travels from producer to processor to retailer, and then to consumer; and that is without taking into account the energy and environmental aspects of production.
A commonly ignored element is the final journey of the food. "The last 10 kilometres can be the most intensive," said Zinn. Especially if you drive around chasing local products from a variety of sources.
"There is a bit of an Antipodean versus European angle to the debate too," said Zinn. "If food miles are the sole factor considered it could have export ramifications for Australia and New Zealand. Yet even with the transport considered, we would have less of a carbon footprint than many European producers because we don't have to grow vegetables in heated greenhouses, or keep livestock indoors."
Zinn's claims are supported by researchers at New Zealand's Lincoln University who conducted a life-cycle analysis of a range of products. Instead of measuring a product's carbon footprint through food miles alone, the scientists included water use; harvesting techniques; fertiliser outlays; renewable energy applications; means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used); the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis; disposal of packaging; storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.
Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, they found that it is four times more energy-efficient for British consumers to buy lamb raised on New Zealand's open pastures and shipped almost 18,000 kilometres by boat to Britain than to buy local lamb, not least because poorer British pastures require intensive farming.
Likewise, some places aren't naturally warm enough to grow bananas sustainably, or even wheat suitable for bread. Others are too dry for many crops. Gaballa says that Australian rice is a case in point. While the consumption of domestic rice in Melbourne carries comparatively low food mileage (381 kilometres), rice production, with its high water requirements, is unsuited to the Riverina region where it is grown in Australia.
Then there are other factors beyond resource use which complicate the question. Ethical consumers who want free range chickens or eggs need access to those grown beyond the dreadful battery cages of the outer suburbs. If local versus non-local means the difference between animal cruelty or more humane farming, then food miles can pale into insignificance.
The issue becomes even more complicated when consumers have to consider "organic" and "fair trade" labels as part of their food choice. Although Australia has had national standards for organic products since 1992, these are only enforced for export products and "organic" often seems to be a fuzzy marketing term suggesting an idyllic little family producer, in contrast to an impersonal agribusiness farm.
In Europe, much of the organic produce is imported from African countries, so as well as food miles, consumers have to consider whether importing such produce exploits cheap labour in an unfair market or provides a path out of poverty for farming communities.
So what else can we do?
We can work on that final 10 kilometres of the food miles. Professor Jules Pretty, a food policy analyst at the University of Essex, said that if car shopping trips were replaced using sustainable transport, such as bus, train, walking or cycling, the environmental and congestion costs in the UK alone would fall by $2.6 billion a year.
We can grow some of our own food, whether it's a garden full of fruit trees and vegie beds or a couple of pots of lettuce or tomatoes on the window sill.
We can make the most of the free food that is in our neighbourhoods. As a small example, within cycling distance of my home I can find a number of prolific mulberry trees on public land; blackberry bushes beside the railway line and highway; olive and fig trees along the banks of the river; loquat or citrus trees hanging over fences with excess fruit in the public domain; and grassy banks with nasturtiums and dandelions which can be added to salads (if the grass hasn't been sprayed with herbicide).
We can cut down on meat, especially red meat, and dairy products. These products account for five to ten times more emissions than nutritionally equivalent grain and nut foods.
We can re-embrace seasonality and control the urge for instant gratification. We could take pleasure in the anticipation of the first peaches and cherries appearing just before Christmas — not expect them to be available all year round.
And finally, we can find out whether our proposed purchases are local, organic or fair trade, so that at least we are making informed choices. As Jules Pretty said: "The most political act we do on a daily basis is to eat, as our actions affect farms, landscapes and food businesses. These choices matter enormously."
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Fantastic article and really points out the needs for local production for local consumption.
If only people woke up and realised this?
The complication of the idea of food miles comes mainly from insisting that we continue to eat what we want when we want (you mentioned this later in the article of course).
Low food miles can be quite simple (in terms of carbon reduction). If you can’t find or grow it in a two mile radius, then you should move to somewhere you can, or, in Australia, petition for allotments. If Britain can do it with a lot less space, Australia surely can. In Oz, farmers waste a hell of a lot more water than a careful gardener with a watering can and some good mulch would.
And seasonality is boring in some regards (here in the north of England, that means kale and swedes for a few months), but also exciting when the new season starts: the first lettuce, the first cucumber, the first raspberry, etc. If we started thinking this way again, we wouldn’t crave chocolate and sweets so unnaturally.
There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that one acre of land farmed industrially produces a great deal less yield than the same acre farmed ‘traditionally’ (by digging, hoeing weeds, using manure etc). The more attention you give a patch, the more it yields. If we were allowed/encouraged to return, in measure at least, to growing food for ourselves, we could probably cut the land needed for farming in half (and return it to nature, or at least give it a chance to return itself).
cheers,
Derek
Thank you for your feedback, Daniel and Derek. I would love to see the concept of allotments take off here. I’m also hoping to get some of our non-native ornamental street trees replaced with fruit trees.
Yuk.
Sure, food miles, and their contribution to global warming are a very important consideration, but even more important is the little paragraph third from the end of this article, which suggests we should cut down on meat, especially red meat, and dairy products.
The production and consumption of all animal products is a significant contributor to the current Australian drought, and to exacerbation of global warming from methane emitted by livestock. Statistics from respected bodies such as C.S.I.R.O. tell us that it
takes between 15,000 - 100,000 litres of water overall, to produce just 1 kilogram of beef. The dairy industry may use as much, or even more. When these products are exported, the embodied water is exported with them.
The number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture. At the rate of 3.2 megatonnes of methane per annum, Australia’s cattle and sheep will have a bigger impact on climate during the next 20 years than all our coal fired power stations together.
So, if an individual seriously wants to minimise their environmental footprint and help prevent global climate change, the most important and urgent first step would be to reduce their consumption of animal products, preferably by changing to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Great contribution Venise - how long did it take you to think that one up? I think the real issue here is genetically modified foods, which are barely discussed at all in the article. Eslake dismisses opposition to them as "irrational", but that’s what the tobacco companies said about concern about the dangers of smoking in the early days. Until there is more work done on the effects on health of GMOs they should be banned.
Genetically Modified Crops/Food
With reports of animals that are fed genetically modified feeds beginning to become infertile what does this mean for the human race. Humans need to reduce their breeding but, it is better to leave that decision up to those sho would be involved in the actual reproduction instead of having the ability damaged by a greedy US corporation.
Anything genetically modified and associated with Monsanto should be shelved on principle. Monsanto has some sort of diabolical agenda with it buying up seed companies around the world while it aggressively pushes it’s genetically modified seeds.
Monsanto’s agenda is a whole lot scarier than worrying about food miles.
I found this article a bit disempowering in that it seemed to conclude that food miles are too hard to get absolutely right and therefore the concept is flawed, other things are as or more important and therefore the concept is inappropriate and reducing meat in the diet will be more effective than reducing food miles. I also found the apparent definition of localisation confusing, as it seemed to assume growing your own or picking public food wasnt part of the concept.
Maybe Im unrealistic, but I dont think we have the time to be picky or selective - I think we need to be moving in many directions, with great urgency. Sure its hard to get the food miles 100% right, but 80% right is better than what we have now surely? Local food means growing your own, or buying at the local farmers market, or from the local mobile abbatoir. Local food means pots on balconies and food swaps of herbs for tomatoes - and most of us have access to some small area of land that could and should be made useful. Local food means planting avocadoes instead of camellias and eating the fruit off trees instead of letting it spoil becuase its humbug to pick it. It means community gardens and kitchen gardens at school, where kids learn to grow for the future when they will have no choice. The fact that we are in transition from idiotic packaging and chemical ingredients doesnt mean we shouldnt make the effort. I thought the "last 10% " where people are accused of wasting fuel going to several markets was a hoot - the solution is to car share or establish co-ops or have a small distribution centre. But even if it takes a drive of 15km to get your veggies from the farm gate, you are still doing the earth more favours than buying them from Brazil!
Much of the articles argument assumed our societies will continue living as we do today, but we all know that is unsustainable. There was no mention of what will happen once the oil runs out, and I am surprised that such a fundamental issue was not mentioned. Once oil is highly scarce, we wont be able to afford to ship fat lambs to England anyway, or tomatoes from Australia to China for canning then back to Australias supermarket shelves complete with preservatives. The simple fact is that we need to be learning to eat what suits our environment - if we cant grow rice in Australia, we shouldnt eat it. If we cant grow bananas in Melbourne, then leave them to the tropical residents. If England cant grow lamb economically, then they need to eat chicken or vegetables instead. If we are causing inhumane treatment of animals through factory farming, this is an argument in favour of backyard chook sheds surely?
I m the last person to argue against a vegetarian diet, but this is part of the local fod story, not an argument against it or for it.
We like to think we are helping developing countries by buying up their crops for "Fair trade" prices, but we are not in many cases. For a start, Fair Trade is a marketing brand with insufficient control of the real on the ground practices. Monsanto can only thrive in huge markets where whole regions are forced onto GE mono crops (as is happening in India) - the Indians actually want to keep their small subsistence farms. Again, if a whole village grows one giant coffee crop, where do they then get their own food? The small farmer is generally the last to benefit from flow on effects of global trade. Buying from the farm gate, or through his co-op is far more likely to be visibly fair, and you are likely to buy food that has been rejected by supermarkets becuase they are not sufficiently round, or oval, or green, or red. Developed countries waste enormous amounts of food at every stage of the supply chain up to and including our own fridge cleanouts
The UK transition towns use "resilience" as their goal - the capacity to locally source the basics for survival, so that when the world can no longer sustain constant growth, and when the oil is gone and we cant buy all those oil fed luxuries anymore, each town will be OK. Thats the essence of localisation.
Fran I think you have misunderstood this article on just about every point it made. Whether you have intentionally taken an oppositional reading is not clear - your comment about the definition of "localisation" appears ironic. It seems to me that the point of th earticle is that consumers need to be empowered, to take responsibility for their choices and make intelligent, informed decisions about the food they buy. The point is that there is no simple answer, so the pros and cons need to be made, by each consumer, about different types of food. To say that because there isn’t an easy answer the article is claiming we should do nothing is simply intellectually laziness. Your comments about Fair TRade are way off the mark and ill-informed and I suggest you do a little more research about it - begin by visiting http://www.fta.org.au
Wow - oppositional, intellectually lazy, ignorant; you clearly didnt like my response Karl. Actually, my comments related to the article’s effect rather than its intention; I dont think I misunderstood the latter and am entitled to my subjective opinion about the former, dont you think? I will stand by my (objective) comments about the Fair Trade marketing tool - while I am aware that the brand is in use legitimately in many (perhaps even most?) cases, it is unfortunately no longer reliably legitimate - and nor are other, similar schemes. Id rather buy a local farm gate product off the farmer and pay the price he/she has set for product he/she has chosen to grow. At least that way I know Im buying ethically. Others may choose differently, and I wont call them names for it - we all have our own standards of behaviour and we all make our own choices.
Fran it is not a matter of me liking or not liking your response. What I feel compelled to critique are unsubstantiated generalisations that presented as argument. For example you write: "I thought the "last 10% " where people are accused of wasting fuel going to several markets was a hoot - the solution is to car share or establish co-ops or have a small distribution centre."
Does this mean that you didn’t understand what the article meant when it cited a study that found"if car shopping trips were replaced using sustainable transport, such as bus, train, walking or cycling, the environmental and congestion costs in the UK alone would fall by $2.6 billion a year." People weren’t actually "accused" of wasting fuel, the argument was that if we want to cut down on food miles, using sustainable transport for our shopping trips is one way to do it.
It’s great that you want to buy things a your "local farm gate" - not everyone lives within a viable distance of the local farm. And because it’s a local farm, you can state "at least that way I know I’m buying ethically". What if your local farm has battery chickens or pigs in multistoried metal cages or vealers kept in the dark?
Farmer’s markets are springing up all over the place in cities and this is a way to get know your local producer and the methods that they use. It takes a bit more effort to find out exactly how the food is produced, rather than just assuming that if it’s local it’s produced in a healthy, ethical way but as consumers we have that responsibility.
Great article and points out well how apparently simple measures taken to lessen our impact on the globe raise complex issues. We have to accept that individuals can make small changes to their lifestyle that will make a huge difference if enough of ‘us’ do them.
You also raise a matter that I contemplate often but am defeated by the prospect of countries being able to cooperate to the extent necessary. Global speacialization of agriculture, commerce and manufacture may not lessen food miles but it should lessen the ocurrence of enviromentally damaging practices in inappropriate places.
Australia is dry and essentially infertile but full of minerals and sunlight. Should not the rice and cotton be grown elsewhere and we should be processing the minerals into the end products. Etc etc.
This obviously raises a range of problems which, in the way the ‘global village’is currently run (by the vicar and the village idiot), are probably insurmountable.
However I guess with more people like thee(and me)we get slowly closer to positive change. Keep it up.