Photo by NatalieMaynor/Flickr CC
Thanks to Dick Jackson, chair of environmental sciences at the UCLA School of Public Health, for sending me the latest paper arguing that food miles --the distances foods travel before they get to you--make no difference to climate change. Eating less meat, say the authors, is what counts. Here's the abstract of the report:
Despite significant recent public concern and media attention to the environmental impacts of food, few studies in the United States have systematically compared the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with food production against long-distance distribution, aka "food-miles." We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household's 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household's food-related climate footprint than "buying local." 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.Never mind the assumptions on which such estimates are based. I have no idea whether they make sense. But before jumping to interpret this paper as an argument against the value of local food, Jackson suggests that we think about the other, perhaps less tangible, benefits of local food production.
He is a transportation expert, so he particularly emphasizes reductions in air pollution, noise, congestion, paving, heat, and the removal of trees. On the personal side, the benefits include more physical activity, "social capital" (the conversations and other transactions between consumers and farmers), income that stays in the community, and--not least--food that is fresher and tastes better.
I've always thought that the real benefits of local food production were in building and preserving communities. I like having farms within easy access of where I live and I like knowing the people who produce my food. If local food doesn't make climate change worse and maybe even helps a bit, that's just icing on the cake. Or am I missing something here?
SHOP THE ATLANTIC FOOD MARKETPLACE
Subscribe to Atlantic Food
The food miles perspective denies poor people in sunny places the chance of a better life in return for incrementally improving our own. As an example, think of winter cherries that come to us in the UK from Chile and Argentina. Their season is brief but reliable, and they can make mortgage payments while we get relief from yet more apples.
Its all very well being po-faced about pollution, but making these cherries locally would involve phenomenal amounts of energy, and pull the ladder away from helpful farmers elsewhre.
I also fear the food miles perspective will put a nice shiny coat of paint on protectionism. Its not a long way to "we need to protect UK cherrymen" - just as the Japanese have to subsidise their local and expensive rice farmers. So there are BIG PROBLEMS with substituting eco-theory for the economics of international trade.
The horse is out of the barn with regards to food miles. Many people in this country have grown accustomed to balanced, diversified diets. I think the best we can do encourage people to buy locally for fruits and vegetables in season.
Joel is absolutely right. One needs to focus on eating what is in-season, locally and then, and only then, look at infrequent treats of out-of-season, non-local products. The thing that will motivate people to do this is some form of carbon tax that will provide a more realistic cost associated with transportation of non-local goods.
Reducing food miles may be a good idea in theory but if you live in a northern area with a short growing season, eating only in-season, local products would result in a very limited menu for a significant portion of the year. I'm more than willing to reduce our family's consumption of red meat but I don't want to give up apples and salad for six months of the year.
I personally don't see much value in local food, because it's just another form of marketing. If you like going to the farmer's market and and talking to the vendor, then right on, enjoy yourself. But measuring the miles the food has travelled doesn't correlate with any of the values my friends espouse when advocating local buying. It doesn't correlate with greenhouse gas emissions, not only for the reasons the paper cites, but because different forms of transportation have widely different energy efficiencies, and because growing food in different climates has wildly different efficiencies. I can buy hothouse tomatoes here that were grown within 300 miles; or I can buy tomatoes from 1,000 miles away that were grown without supplemental heat. Which one is better? (I'd pick the no-supplemental-heat ones, myself).
-air pollution, noise, congestion, paving, heat, and the removal of trees.-
I don't see a clear connection between these things and local food. Freight volume is not what drives up congestion or paving and all of the noise, pollution, and heat that accompany it. Besides that, a lot of food is moved by rail and ship, which don't correlate with those factors. And local food that you buy at a farmer's market is often shipped very inefficiently. A farmer's pickup uses a lot of fuel per pound of freight and only carries the freight one way.
-On the personal side, the benefits include more physical activity, "social capital" (the conversations and other transactions between consumers and farmers), income that stays in the community, and--not least--food that is fresher and tastes better.-
I really don't see this. In what way does local food include more physical activity? And "social capital"- why is my conversation with the vendor at a farmer's market more important than my conversation with the clerk at Cash & Carry, who knows my name, my husband's name, when we got married, and what we like to buy? And how is that different from my conversation with the vendor at Pike Place market, who sells me Pommelos from tropical climates and stays up-to-date on the construction project I'm working on? Having human transactions has nothing to do with local food. I think it has a lot to do with the scale of a market, and with my choice to shop at places where I like the clerks rather than places that are cheapest or chic-est or closest to my house.
And income that stays in the community? I'm lost on that one, too. There are plenty of corporate-owned farms in my locality, for one. But more importantly, what is good about keeping my money in my community? In my experience (and I apologize, I realize this isn't in your post), the people I know who are all for local food also love to buy African and Indonesian handicrafts, and would never consider buying the local chainsaw sculptures. My community (Seattle) is one of the most prosperous in the world. Why is it important that we keep it all here? What's wrong with sending some money to tomato farmers in Mexico?
I do think I understand the appeal of "local" food- but the thing is, "local" is not actually the metric that measures what is valuable to the people I know who like local food. Scale of enterprise has so much more to do with it. I can see a lot of these virtues in small-scale food. But local and small-scale are two completely different things, and I don't understand why they've been conflated.
We are mixing two issues here. One is - what kind of food can be produced sustainably on a global basis? With 7 billion people on the planet - we know for a fact that we cannot consume current western levels of red meat and dairy sustainably - even if we switched to local organic methods. Most plants on the planet are grown for animal feed and we would all be better off if we consumed those calories directly. That is the most important point probably if you care about the environment and the security of all humans.
But we could all live sustainably on a plant based diet. There the question can and should be: what type of agriculture is best for the communities. Local organic or remote monoculture. Seems as if the positive externalities of local production can outweigh efficiency claims of large, remote operations. But the data is far less certain for the "local" arguments than it is for what type of food, independent of its production methods, can feed the planet.
From a purely environmental point of view - once we have managed to take care of the urgent and important challenge of reducing meat and dairy - we can and should move on to the less urgent and less important challenge of where and how we grow our food. First what and why - then how.... I would expect Al Gore to promote vegetarianism (which he does not).
From a purely community point of view - the local production issue does matter. I would expect local politicians and community organizer to promote local agriculture.
But given the urgency of the environmental problem - the worst outcome would be more local production of meat and dairy - without a global reduction of those "foods".
I really don't get this issue. Every single farm is local to somewhere, whether it is industrial monoculture or artisan and diversified. What is the value of "local" with regards to the environment? Why should I privilege my own locality, which is already one of the most privileged in the world? I am baffled.