Food miles is a term which refers to the distance food is transported
from the time of its production until it reaches the consumer. Food
miles are one factor used when assessing the environmental
impact of food, including the impact on global
warming.
The concept of food miles originated in the early 1990s in
the United Kingdom. It was conceived by Professor Tim Lang, at the Sustainable
Agriculture Food and Environment (SAFE) Alliance and first appeared in print in
a report “The Food Miles Report: The dangers of long-distance food transport”,
researched and written by Angela Paxton.
Some scholars believe that an increase in the miles food
travels is due to the globalization of trade; the focus of food supply bases
into fewer, larger districts; drastic changes in delivery patterns; the
increase in processed and packaged foods; and making fewer trips to the
supermarket. At the same time, most of the greenhouse
gas emissions created by food have their origin in the production phases,
which create 83% of overall emissions of CO2.
A range of studies compare emissions over the entire food
cycle, including production, consumption, and transport. These include
estimates of food-related emissions of greenhouse gas 'up to the farm gate'
versus 'beyond the farm gate'. In the UK, for example, agricultural-related
emissions may account for approximately 40% of the overall food chain
(including retail, packaging, fertilizer manufacture, and other factors),
whereas greenhouse gases emitted in transport account for around 12% of overall
food-chain emissions. The goal of environmental protection agencies is to make
people aware of the environmental impact of food miles and to show the
pollution percentage and the energy used to transport food over long distances.
Researchers are currently working to provide the public with more information.
The concept of "food miles" has been criticised,
and food miles are not always correlated with the actual environmental impact
of food production.
Overview
The concept of food miles is part of the broader issue of sustainability
which deals with a large range of environmental, social and economic issues,
including local
food. The term was coined by Tim Lang (now Professor of Food Policy, City University, London) who says:
"The point was to highlight the hidden ecological, social and economic
consequences of food production to consumers in a simple way, one which had
objective reality but also connotations." Food that is transported by road
produces more carbon emissions than any other form of transported food. Road
transport produces 60% of the world's food transport carbon emissions. Air transport
produces 20% of the world's food transport carbon emissions. Rail and sea
transport produce 10% each of the world's food transport carbon emissions.
Although it was never intended as a complete measure of
environmental impact, it has come under attack as an ineffective means of
finding the true environmental impact. For example, a DEFRA report in 2005
undertaken by researchers at AEA
Technology Environment, entitled The Validity of Food Miles as an
Indicator of Sustainable Development, included findings that "the
direct environmental, social and economic costs of food transport are over £9
billion each year, and are dominated by congestion." The report also
indicates that it is not only how far the food has travelled but the method of
travel in all parts of the food chain that is important to consider. Many trips
by personal cars to shopping centres would have a negative environmental impact
compared to transporting a few truckloads to neighbourhood stores that can be
easily reached by walking or cycling. More emissions are created by the drive
to the supermarket to buy air freighted food than was created by the air
freighting in the first place. Also, the positive environmental effects of organic
farming may be compromised by increased transportation,
unless it is produced by local farms.
Food miles in business
Business leaders such as Skidmore Professor James Kennelly
have adopted food miles as a model for understanding inefficiency in a food supply
chain. Wal-Mart,
famously focused on cost-saving efficiency, was an early adopter of food miles
as a profit-maximizing strategy. More recently, Wal-Mart has embraced the
environmental benefits of supply chain efficiency as well. In 2006, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said, "The benefits of the
strategy are undeniable, whether you look through the lens of greenhouse
gas reduction or the lens of cost savings. What has become so obvious is
that 'a green strategy' provides better value for our customers".
Wegman's, a 71-store chain across the northeast, has
purchased local foods for over 20 years. In their case, the produce manager in
each store controls the influx of local foods, the relationships with the local
farms are not centrally controlled. A recent study led by Professor Miguel
Gomez (Applied Economics and Management), at Cornell University and supported by the Atkinson Center for a
Sustainable Future found that in many instances, the supermarket supply
chain did much better in terms of food miles and fuel consumption for each
pound compared to farmers markets. It suggests that selling local foods through
supermarkets may be more economically viable and sustainable than through
farmers markets.
Calculating food miles
With processed foods that are made of many different
ingredients, it is very complicated, though not impossible, to calculate the
CO2 emissions from transport by multiplying the distance travelled of each
ingredient, by the carbon intensity of the mode of transport (air, road or
rail). However, as both Prof. Lang and the original Food Miles report noted,
the resulting number – although interesting, cannot give the whole picture of
how sustainable – or not – a food product is. Its value is in highlighting one
of the many damaging aspects of the current, globalised food and farming
system.
Criticism
Fair trade
According to Oxfam researchers, there are many other aspects
of the agricultural processing and the food supply
chain that also contribute to greenhouse
gas emissions which are not taken into account by simple "food
miles" measurements. There are benefits to be gained by improving
livelihoods in poor countries through agricultural development. Smallholder
farmers in poor countries can often improve their income and standard of living
if they can sell to distant export markets for higher value horticultural
produce, moving away from the subsistence agriculture of producing staple crops
for their own consumption or local markets.
However, exports from poor countries do not always benefit
poor people. Unless the product has a Fairtrade label, or a label from another
robust and independent scheme, food exports might make a bad situation worse.
For example, wages are often very low and working conditions bad and sometimes
dangerous. Sometimes the food grown for export takes up land that had been used
to grow food for local consumption, so local people can go hungry.
Energy used in production as well as transport
Researchers say a more complete environmental assessment of
food that consumers buy needs to take into account how the food has been
produced and what energy
is used in its production. A recent DEFRA case study indicated that tomatoes grown in Spain and transported
to the United Kingdom may have a lower carbon footprint in
terms of energy efficiency than tomatoes grown in
heated greenhouses
in the United Kingdom.
According to German researchers the food miles concept
misleads consumers because the size of transportation and production units is
not taken into account. Using the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in
accordance to ISO
14040 entire supply chains to provide German consumers with food were
investigated, comparing local food with food of European and global provenance.
As a matter of fact an increasing size of transportation and production units
leads to decreasing energy use per kilogram food. Research reports from the Chair of Process Engineering in Food
and Service Business, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Elmar H. Schlich at Justus Liebig University Giessen,
Germany, define and establish the term and theory of "Ecologies of
Scale", by analogy to the well-known term of "Economies of Scale". In terms of energy use
per kilogram small food production units may cause even more environmental
impact compared to bigger units even if the food miles are lower. Case studies
of lamb meat, beef, bottled wine, apples, fruit juices and pork meat gave
evidence to this and disproved the food miles concept as too simple.
A 2006 research report from the Agribusiness and Economics
Research Unit at Lincoln University, New Zealand
counters claims about food miles by comparing total energy used in food
production in Europe
and New
Zealand, taking into account energy used to ship the food to Europe for
consumers. The report states, "New Zealand has greater production efficiency
in many food commodities compared to the UK. For example New Zealand agriculture
tends to apply fewer fertilizers (which require large amounts of energy to
produce and cause significant CO2
emissions) and animals are able to graze year round
outside eating grass instead of large quantities of brought-in feed
such as concentrates.
In the case of dairy and sheep
meat production NZ is by far more energy efficient, even including the transport
cost, than the UK, twice as efficient in the case of dairy, and four times as
efficient in case of sheep meat. In the case of apples, NZ is more
energy-efficient even though the energy embodied in capital items and other
inputs data was not available for the UK."
Other researchers have contested the claims from New
Zealand. Professor Gareth Edwards-Jones has said that the arguments “in favour
of New Zealand apples shipped to the UK is probably true only or about two
months a year, during July and August, when the carbon footprint for locally
grown fruit doubles because it comes out of cool stores.”
Studies by Dr. Chris Weber et al. of the total carbon
footprint of food production in the U.S. have shown transportation to be of
minor importance, compared to the carbon emissions resulting from pesticide and
fertilizer production, and the fuel required by farm and food processing
equipment.
Intensive livestock production as a source of greenhouse
gases
Farm animals account for between 20% and 30% of global greenhouse
gas emissions.That figure includes the clearing of land to feed and graze
the animals. Clearing land of trees, and cultivation, are the main drivers of
farming emissions. Deforestation eliminates carbon
sinks, accelerating the process of climate
change. Cultivation, including the use of synthetic fertilisers, releases greenhouse
gases such as nitrous oxide. Nitrogen fertiliser is especially demanding of fossil
fuels, as producing a tonne of it takes 1.5 tonnes of oil.
Meanwhile, it’s increasingly recognised that meat and dairy
are the largest sources of food-related emissions. The UK’s consumption of meat
and dairy products (including imports) accounts for about 8% of national greenhouse gas emissions
related to consumption.
According to a study by engineers Christopher Weber and H.
Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University, of all the
greenhouse gases emitted by the food industry, only 4% comes from transporting
the food from producers to retailers. The study also concluded that adopting a vegetarian
diet, even if the vegetarian food is transported over very long distances,
does far more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, than does eating a locally
grown diet. They also concluded that "Shifting less than one day per
week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy
products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more
GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food." In other words, the
amount of red meat consumption is much more important that food miles.
"Local" food miles
A commonly ignored element is the local loop. For example, a
gallon of gasoline could transport 5 kg of meat over 60,000 miles
(97,000 km) by road (40tonner at 8mpg) in bulk transport, or it could
transport a single consumer only 30 or 40 miles (64 km) to buy that meat.
Thus foods from a distant farm that are transported in bulk to a nearby store
consumer can have a lower footprint than foods a consumer picks up directly
from a farm that is within driving distance but farther away than the store.
This can mean that doorstep deliveries of food by companies can lead to lower
carbon emissions or energy use than normal shopping practices. Relative
distances and mode of transportation make this calculation complicated. For
example, consumers can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their part
of the journey by walking, bicycling, or taking public transport. Another
impact is that goods being transported by large ships very long distances can
have lower associated carbon emissions or energy use than the same goods
traveling by truck a much shorter distance.
Lifecycle analysis, rather than food miles
Lifecycle analysis, a technique that meshes
together a wide range of different environmental criteria including emissions
and waste, is a more holistic way of assessing the real environmental impact of
the food we eat. The technique accounts for energy input and output involved in
the production, processing, packaging and transport of food. It also factors in
resource depletion, air pollution and water
pollution and waste generation/municipal solid waste.
A number of organisations are developing ways of calculating
the carbon cost or lifecycle impact of food and agriculture. Some are more
robust than others but, at the moment, there is no easy way to tell which ones
are thorough, independent and reliable, and which ones are just marketing hype.
Other aspects of sustainability, such as local jobs, and
health
Even a full lifecycle analysis accounts only for the
environmental effects of food production and consumption. Important though that
is, it is only one of the widely agreed three pillars of sustainable
development, namely environmental, social and economic.
Other reasons for wanting to buy local food
Improved animal welfare - locally produced meat and dairy
products are not always higher welfare, but it is at least easier to check if
the farm is local. In addition, buying local can help to avoid animals being
transported live, over long and stressful distances. Also fresher, more
nutritious food - it is a good rule of thumb that fresh food is tastier and
often more nutritious, as some types of vitamins in some foods do not store
well. However, some vitamins and minerals are very robust in storage, and some
types of preservation e.g. freezing and canning can preserve some vitamins.
Which is best depends on the type of food, which nutrients you are interested
in, and how the food has been transported, processed and cooked.
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