The term ‘Food Miles’ was conceived by Andrea Paxton, who wrote a research paper that defined Food Miles as the distance that food travels from the farm it is produced on to the kitchen in which it is being consumed and is a means by which one might determine the environmental impact of a given food product. However, Joe Lederman, adjunct professor of food law at Deakin University and managing principal of FoodLegal believes that ‘the concept of “food miles” is badly flawed and might well breach Australia’s free trade obligations if it was introduced as a mandatory labelling requirement nationwide’.
It is apparent that environmentalists all over the world are putting forward the argument that freighting food over long distances consumed too much fuel and energy and released greenhouse gases which speed up global warming. In response to this, a number of restaurants and supermarkets in the UK are starting to promote the labelling of ‘food miles’ on their products to show how far the products had travelled from ‘paddock to the point of sale’.
Whilst I had heard of the term ‘Food Miles’ long before, nowhere was I more slapped in the face by the concept than last year on a brief trip to New Zealand where I visited an organic green grocers shop on the countries South Island during the middle of winter where the ski season was in full swing. On the shelves, I noticed beautiful organic bananas and mangoes. How lovely…perhaps I just go and buy some…but then..wait a minute…how thoughtless and hypocritical were my initial thoughts? They weren’t seasonal. They werent local! All the care in the world had been taken to grow these beautiful fruits in tropical conditions to ensure their environmental impact was kept to an absolute minimum only for these efforts to be totally wiped out by their greenhouse gas producing flight to a very cold climate country so that some fat cats could drink their mango daquiri in an ‘apres-ski’ binge drinking session.
It appears that my indoctrination into the concept of ‘food miles’ was wrong..maybe!
Lederman in a recent keynote address at at a Food Industry Association seminar in Perth quoted a US survey that showed that 83% of emissions comes from the growth and production of food itself, 11% from transportation and only 4% comes from the transport from paddock to the point of sale. He also quoted another report from Lincoln University in Christchurch, New Zealand which demonstrated that the New Zealand dairy industry was able to produce and deliver dairy products to the UK generating less greenhouse gas emissions that British dairy farmers who were delivering to their own domestic markets.
Indeed it was indicated in another report quoted by Lederman that ‘the short trips in the car by consumers to the local supermarket to pick up the shopping might be more detrimenal to the environment than the sea or air transport used to move bulk food over far greater distances’.
This was a very interesting article and had to some extent addressed some of my own concerns with the concept of ‘food miles’. However I still feel that it is a valid concept although quite flawed as it fails to take into account the efficiencies of the growers concerned and the environmental viability of the area in which the particular food product is grown. If more than 80% of the greenhouse gas released in producing food, any food, and only 4% is released in the paddock to plate transport, then it is the area of the 80% where we need to put our efforts into reducing. One of these things will be in ensuring that the largest buyers are purchasing food products from markets where production is as efficient as possible and where the climate is best suited environmentally to producing that given product. Indeed if dairy products can be produced in New Zealand with considerably less greenhouse gas emissions than could be produced in the UK, then let NZ produce it until the British can either produce at similar efficiencies to their New Zealand counterparts or let the British produce whatever they are most efficient at and what their climate is best suited to and they can export whatever food stuff that is to the rest of the world.
Perhaps if the concept of ‘food miles’ is to be used by supermarkets as a means of showing consumers the environmental impact of the foods they are purchasing then a more comprehensive means of determining its greenhouse emission status should be used. Maybe a full ‘carbon-footprint’ should be used instead which takes into account efficiency of production and puts a greater weighting on the 80% of greenhouse gas emissions that occur during production rather than putting all the weight on the 4% that accounts for the transport of the product.
And what about those ‘Fat-Cat-mango daquiri-drinkers’ in the land of the long white cloud? Well, I’m sure nothing will change them from taking their luxuries. However, the up coming carbon trading schemes will likely ensure that it is only the fattest of these cats that are able to enjoy such luxuries!
This blog entry is based on an article in the Dec 08 issue of Food Australia, the official journal of the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST), Vol 60, Number 12, p 548.
