DEFRA Study About Impact of 'Food Miles'
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 07.16.05
This study by the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) goes well with our previous post about the 100 miles diet. The findings are not very surprising, but it's interesting to see some quantitative data: The cost of moving found around in the UK is as much as £9 billion a year ($15.7 billion), half of that due to traffic congestion. The quantity of food moved by truck has doubled since 1974 and the DEFRA reports that 25% of all miles covered by heavy goods traffic was to move food. "Consumers travel an average of 898 miles a year by car to shop for food [...] In 2002, food transport produced 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, of which 10 Million tonnes were emitted in the UK and 9 million tonnes were generated by food imports." The change from frequent shopping – on foot – in local shops to weekly shopping in supermarkets by car is a factor.
The four key findings of the study are:
1. A single indicator based on total food kilometres is an inadequate indicator of sustainability.
2. Data is available to provide and update a meaningful set of indicators on an annual basis.
3. Food transport has significant and growing impacts.
4. The direct environmental, social and economic costs of food transport are over £9 billion each year, and are dominated by congestion.
You can read the full report here (in pdf format) for all the details.
::The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development, via ::BBC
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You're flogging a dead horse with these "food miles" and "100 miles diet" ideas. Only a masochist is going to go on that diet, and most people, even "enlightened" environmentally concerned folks are simply not going to forego their wild Alaskan salmon, their Californian Merlot, their Greek kalamata olives or their authentic Parmigiano Reggiano - all bought at the Whole Foods market, of course.
Of course - those are "luxury" items, but I hope you see my point. The 100 miles diet is just silly, and I bet the people trying to stick to it are simply miserable.
Mart,
The point is, our current food system is not sustainable and we'll eventually have to replace it whether people want it or not - it simply won't be affordable anymore. These researches and experiments are not trying to tell people: "Okay, right now, EVERYBODY live on a 100-miles diet", they are trying to find what are the limits, what are the impacts of certain things, what is possible, etc. Also, it's not all or nothing: You don't have to live 100% local, but the more you buy local, the better it is, and that's not hard to understand.
Eventually, when oil is $100 and up per barrel (15 years ago it was around $12, if I remember correctly) and China and India demand their share, you'll have to give up your Alaskan salmon (except if you live in Alaska) and your kiwis from New Zealand and such... They simply don't make any sense at all to be shipping around the globe. Our agriculture is *way* too fossil fuel intensive (oil is used for fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, machinery, transport, etc) and only possible in a world were oil is artificially cheap.
Get used to it.
America uses 7 billion barrels of oil every year. In the US, we have 28 billion barrels left. Then it's gone.
In the past, we've made nice with Saudi Arabia, and they've bailed us out by raising production when there was a shortage and prices went up. They can no longer raise production. They are on the downside of using their oil reserves, and can no longer pump as much as they used to.
Forget about the 3,000 mile Caesar Salad and think about the 20,000 mile -- or whatever it is -- polo shirt and sneakers. Seventy percent of everything sold in WalMart is now made in China. Not only does China own a lot of our national debt, but we depend on them to buy more, so our interest rates won't go up. We are about 4% of the world population, and account for about 27% of the daily energy consumption. China has 5 times as many people as us, and we are teaching them to be just like us.
They are tearing down their cities and building auto-based sprawl to subsidize their auto industry. As they get more expensive, a lot of their work will move on to India, which will soon pass China in population. Together, they will have 10 times as many people as us. They have nuclear weapons and will want more oil.
And you think we'll still be buying 3,000 mile Caesar salads?
Living in an historically isolated country in the North Atlantic, namely Iceland I think I could have a valid thing or two to say. Anything that resembles a 100 mile diet has ever been practised here, since original settlement in AD 974 we have always imported a great deal of goods such as wheat, because it just can´t grow in such a cold climate. What´s going to change in the future is not the amount of foodstuff but the rate and perhaps quality. Obviously fruit from accross the globe is at best to be delivered in cans. But people are resilliant and new ways will be found, just as we always have. That´s why we need forums like this to discuss our options. But promoting a "100 mile diet" is nothing short of silly and irresponsible. Today there are quite a few million people on this diet, they live in Africa and are starving. Please remember that trade was not invented in the oil era.
uh, what exactly is silly or irresponsible about promoting the idea of buying local? i think you guys are totally missing the point here. if you can buy something within a certain range, then this diet tells you that would be preferable. quit crying about your individual circumstances and take it for what it is: a goal.
" I bet the people trying to stick to it are simply miserable."
You oviously haven't been to my local organic farmers market in Dufferin Grove Park, Toronto. I can get delicious local food year round there. Just last week I bought fresh-picked raspberries, black raspberries, cherries, tiny sour cherries, dill cucumbers, striped beets, two kinds of lettuce, fresh basil, heirloom tomatoes, and much more. Much of this stuff is ONLY available here - you won't find anything nearly as fresh or exotic at the supermarket. On the way home, I collected some mulberries from a local tree.
But you do have a point. It is important to enjoy your efforts and not get caught up tying to be too strict with it. And there is a big difference between perishable produce and items like dry grains and legumes that don't need very much energy for transport.
Buying local produce is very positive, but refraining from buying anything that has to be moved is not. Silly because only a few people will see any benefit from it and still have hungerpains and irresponsible because international trade is so important for global prosperity and peace as the EU is proof of.
I sometimes have a hard time seeing things from an American point of view though because all sorts of things are fundamentally very different there and often even more wasteful than I had imagined possible. So I can understand that the problem is percieved as being much greater west of the pond. For instance it never stops to amaze me how incredibly (unnecessarily) large freight trucks, delivery trucks and school buses are in the U.S.