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How much energy goes into a fish finger?

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How much energy goes into a fish finger?

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This short video highlights the amount of energy required in the journey of a fish finger, from ocean to plate

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'Supervalue' - a look at food miles and food waste

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How does food production harm the environment?

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How does food production harm the environment?

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What are the key environmental concerns highlighted in the following video clip:

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How does food production impact the environment?

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Interview with Tara Garnett, head of Food Climate Research Network, about how UK food production impacts the environment.

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Worksheet for Task 1. Exotic Fruit Salad

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Worksheet for Task 1. Exotic Fruit Salad

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Using the following link to complete Task 1

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Given what you now know, what would you say to a 'locavore' who argues that food miles are bad for the environment?

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Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.

Local food (or "locavore") movements aim to connect food producers and consumers in the same geographic region, to develop more self-reliant and resilient food networks; improve local economies; or to affect the health, environment, community, or society of a particular place. The term has also been extended to include not only the geographic location of supplier and consumer but can also be "defined in terms of social and supply chain characteristics." For example, local food initiatives often promote sustainable and organic farming practices, although these are not explicitly related to the geographic proximity of producer and consumer.

Local food represents an alternative to the global food model, which often sees food traveling long distances before it reaches the consumer.

In the USA, the local food movement has been traced to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which spawned agricultural subsidies and price supports. The contemporary American movement can be traced back to proposed resolutions to the Society for Nutrition Education's 1981 guidelines. In 1994, Chicago pop culture made local food a trend in the Midwest. These largely unsuccessful resolutions encouraged increased local production to slow farmland loss. The program described "sustainable diets" - a term then new to the American public. At the time, the resolutions were met with strong criticism from pro-business institutions, but have had a strong resurgence of backing since 2000.

In 2008, the United States farm bill was revised to emphasise nutrition: "it provides low-income seniors with vouchers for use at local produce markets, and it added more than $1 billion to the fresh fruit and vegetable program, which serves healthy snacks to 3 million low-income children in schools".

No single definition of local food systems exists. The geographic distances between production and consumption varies within the movement. However, the general public recognizes that "local" describes the marketing arrangement (e.g. farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers' markets or to schools). Definitions can be based on political or geographic boundaries, or on food miles. The American Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 states that:

(I) the locality or region in which the final product is marketed, so that the total distance that the product is transported is less than 400 miles from the origin of the product; or
(II) the State in which the product is produced.

In May 2010 the USDA acknowledged this definition in an informational leaflet.

State definitions of "local" can be included in laws, statutes, regulations, or program materials, however few state laws explicitly define "local" food. Most states use "local" (or similar words like "native") in food procurement and marketing policies to mean that the food was produced within that state.

The concept of "local" is also seen in terms of ecology, where food production is considered from the perspective of a basic ecological unit defined by its climate, soil, watershed, species and local agrisystems, a unit also called an ecoregion or a foodshed. Similar to watersheds, foodsheds follow the process of where food comes from and where it ends up.

In America, local food sales were worth $1.2 billion in 2007, more than doubled from $551 million in 1997. There were 5,274 farmers' markets in 2009, compared to 2,756 in 1998. In 2005, there were 1,144 community-supported agriculture organizations (CSAs). There were 2,095 farm to school programs in 2009. Using metrics such as these, a Vermont-based farm and food advocacy organization, Strolling of the Heifers, publishes the annual Locavore Index, a ranking of the 50 U.S. states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. In the 2016 Index, the three top-ranking states were Vermont, Maine and Oregon, while the three lowest-ranking states were Nevada, Texas and Florida.

Websites now exist that aim to connect people to local food growers. They often include a map where fruit and vegetable growers can pinpoint their location and advertise their produce.

Supermarket chains also participate in the local food scene. In 2008 Walmart announced plans to invest $400 million in locally grown produce. Other chains, like Wegman's (a 71-store chain across the northeast), have long cooperated with the local food movement. A recent study led by economist Miguel Gomez found that the supermarket supply chain often did much better in terms of food miles and fuel consumption for each pound compared to farmers markets.

Local food campaigns have been successful in supporting small local farmers. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms increased 20% in the six years to 2008, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Department.

Launched in 2009, North Carolina's 10% local food campaign is aimed at stimulating economic development, creating jobs and promoting the state's agricultural offerings. The campaign is a partnership between The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), with support from N.C. Cooperative Extension and the Golden LEAF Foundation.

In 2017, a campaign was started in Virginia by the Common Grains Alliance mirroring many of the efforts of the North Carolina campaign.

Motivations for eating local food include healthier food, environmental benefits, and economic or community benefits. Many local farmers, whom locavores turn to for their source of food, use the crop rotation method when producing their organic crops. This method not only aids in reducing the use of pesticides and pollutants, but also keeps the soil in good condition rather than depleting it. Locavores seek out farmers close to where they live, and this significantly reduces the amount of travel time required for food to get from farm to table. Reducing the travel time makes it possible to transport the crops while they are still fresh, without using chemical preservatives. The combination of local farming techniques and short travel distances makes the food consumed more likely to be fresh, an added benefit.

Local eating can support public objectives. It can promote community interaction by fostering relationships between farmers and consumers. Farmers' markets can inspire more sociable behavior, encouraging shoppers to visit in groups. 75% of shoppers at farmers' markets arrived in groups compared to 16% of shoppers at supermarkets. At farmers' markets, 63% had an interaction with a fellow shopper, and 42% had an interaction with an employee or farmer. More affluent areas tend to have at least some access to local, organic food, whereas low-income communities, which in America often have African American and Hispanic populations, may have little or none, and "are often replete with calorie-dense, low-quality food options", adding to the obesity crisis.

Local foods require less energy to store and transport, possibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Farmers markets create local jobs. In a study in Iowa (Hood 2010), the introduction of 152 farmers' markets created 576 jobs, a $59.4 million increase in output, and a $17.8 million increase in income.

Since local foods travel a shorter distance and are often sold directly from producer to consumer, they may not require as much processing or packaging as other foods that need to be transported over long distances. If they are not processed, they may contain fewer added sugars or preservatives. The term "local" is sometimes synonymous with sustainable or organic practices, which can also arguably provide added health benefits.

Critics of the local foods movement question the fundamental principles behind the push to eat locally. For example, the concept that fewer "food miles" translates to a more sustainable meal has not been supported by major scientific studies. According to a study conducted at Lincoln University in New Zealand: "As a concept, food miles has gained some traction with the popular press and certain groups overseas. However, this debate which only includes the distance food travels is spurious as it does not consider total energy use especially in the production of the product." The locavore movement has been criticized by Dr. Vasile Stănescu, the co-senior editor of the Critical Animal Studies book series, as being idealistic and for not actually achieving the environmental benefits of the claim that the reduced food miles decrease the number of gasses emitted. Studies have shown that the amount of gasses saved by local transportation while existing, does not have a significant enough impact to consider it a benefit. Food miles concept does not consider agriculture, which is having contributed the highest when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, season and transportation medium also makes a difference.

The only study to date that directly focuses on whether or not a local diet is more helpful in reducing greenhouse gases was conducted by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews at Carnegie-Mellon. They concluded that "dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household's food-related climate footprint than 'buying local'". However, a 2022 study suggests global food miles CO ₂ emissions are 3.5-7.5 times higher than previously estimated, with transport accounting for about 19% of total food-system emissions, albeit shifting towards plant-based diets remains substantially more important. Because[verification needed ] of such a shift being needed (mainly for climate change mitigation) and because[verification needed ] the transport of vegetables, fruits, cereal and flour make up the largest share of the emissions, the study concludes that "a shift towards plant-based foods must be coupled with more locally produced items, mainly in affluent countries".

Numerous studies have shown that locally and sustainably grown foods release more greenhouse gases than food made in factory farms. The "Land Degradation" section of the United Nations report Livestock's Long Shadow concludes that " Intensification - in terms of increased productivity both in livestock production and in feed crop agriculture - can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation". Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia found that cattle raised on open pastures release 50% more greenhouse gas emissions than cattle raised in factory farms. Adrian Williams of Cranfield University in England found that free range and organic raised chickens have a 20% greater impact on global warming than chickens raised in factory farm conditions, and organic egg production had a 14% higher impact on the climate than factory farm egg production.[citation needed ] Studies such as Christopher Weber's report on food miles have shown that the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions in production far outweighs those in transportation, which implies that locally grown food is actually worse for the environment than food made in factory farms.

While locavorism has been promoted as a feasible alternative to modern food production, some believe it might negatively affect the efficiency of production. As technological advances have influenced the amount of output of farms, the productivity of farmers has skyrocketed in the last 70 years. These latter criticisms combine with deeper concerns of food safety, cited on the lines of the historical pattern of economic or food safety inefficiencies of subsistence farming which form the topic of the book The Locavore's Dilemma by geographer Pierre Desrochers and public policy scholar Hiroko Shimizu.

1. Feenstra, G. (2002) Creating space for ^ sustainable food systems: lessons from the field. Agriculture and Human Values. 19(2). 99-106.

2. ^ Martinez, Steve; Hand, Michael; Da Pra, Michelle; Pollack, Susan; Ralston, Katherine; Smith, Travis; Vogel, Stephen; Clark, Shellye; Lohr, Luanne; Low, Sarah; Newman, Constance (May 2010). "Economic Research Report Number 97: Local Food Systems Concepts, Impacts, and Issues" (PDF). Economic Research Service. ERS (Economic Research Service).

3. Dunne, Jonnie B.; Chambers, Kimberlee J.; Giombolini, Katlyn J.; Schlegel, Sheridan A. (March 2011). "What does 'local' mean in the grocery store? Multiplicity in food retailers' perspectives on sourcing and marketing local foods". Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Cambridge University Press. 26 (1): 46-59. doi:10.1017/S1742170510000402. S2CID 154308247.

4. ^ "Historical Reflections on the Current Local Food and Agriculture Movement | Essays in History". www.essaysinhistory.com. Archived from the original on 6 September 2017.

5. ^ Gussow, Joan (July 1998). "Dietary Guidelines for Sustainability: Twelve Years Later". Society for Nutrition Education. 31 (4): 194-200. doi:10.1016/S0022-3182(99)70441-3.

6. ^ "One Hundred Tenth Congress of the United States of America, at the Second Session" (PDF). www.gpo.gov. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 April 2022.

7. "^ Strolling of the Heifers 2016 Locavore Index: Which states are most committed to locally-sourced food?," Strolling of the Heifers

8. ^ Craven, Teri J.; Krejci, Caroline C.; Mittal, Anuj (January 2018). "Logistics Best Practices for Regional Food Systems: A Review". Sustainability. 10 (1): 168. doi:10.3390/su10010168.

9. Gogoi, Pallavi. "The Local Food Movement Benefits Farms, Food Production, Environment." ^ The Local Food Movement. Amy Francis. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. At Issue. Rpt. from "The Rise of the 'Locavore': How the Strengthening Local Food Movement in Towns Across the U.S. Is Reshaping Farms and Food Retailing." Business Week Online. 2008. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 27 March 2014.

10. ^ "10% campaign off to a strong start". NC Farm Bureau Magazine. January 2011. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012.

11. ^ "North Carolina campaign promoting locally grown food." Southeast Farm Press [Online Exclusive] 22 November 2011. General OneFile. Web. 11 December 2011.

12. "The Local Food Movement." ^ Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection.Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 February 2014

13. "The Local Food Movement." ^ Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 February 2014.

14. O'Hara, Jeffrey K. (August 2011). "Market Forces: Creating Jobs through Public Investment in Local and Regional Food Systems" (PDF). ucsusa.org. Union of Concerned Scientists-Citizens and Scientists for Environmental Solutions.

15. ^ Eagle, Taylor (2012). Understanding Childhood Obesity in America: Linkages between Household Income, Community Resources, and Children's Behaviors (163.5 ed.). American Heart Journal. pp. 836-843.

16. ^ Caroline Saunders, Andrew Barber, and Greg Taylor, "Food Miles - Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand's Agriculture Industry" Research Report No. 285 Lincoln University, New Zealand, July 2007. 93.

17. Stănescu, Vasile (2010). "^ 'Green' Eggs and Ham? The Myth of Sustainable Meat and the Danger of the Local" (PDF). Journal for Critical Animal Studies 8(1/2):8-32.

18. ^ Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews, "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States " Environ. Sci. Technol., 42, no.10 (2008): 3508.

19. Li, Mengyu; Jia, Nanfei; Lenzen, Manfred; Malik, Arunima; Wei, Liyuan; Jin, Yutong; Raubenheimer, David (June 2022). "Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions". Nature Food. 3 (6): 445-453. doi:10.1038/s43016-022-00531-w. ISSN 2662-1355. S2CID 249916086.

20. ^ "Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options." Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. United Nations, n.d. Web. 11 February 2013.

21. ^ Raloff, Janet. "AAAS: Climate-friendly Dining ... Meats | Environment | Science News."AAAS: Climate-friendly Dining ... Meats | Environment | Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 February 2013.

McWilliams, James. Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010.

Wilk, Richard, ed. Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food System. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2006.

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Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.

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 C02 emissions in food from transportation

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 C02 emissions in food from transportation

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What does this image say about the source of CO2 emissions from transportation related to food

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Important reading: How the food miles 'myth' became a 'mantra'

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Important reading: How the food miles 'myth' became a 'mantra'

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Will buying locally-produced food save the planet? Food writer Stefan Gates argues that it's not worth worrying about "food miles".

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Will buying locally-produced food save the planet? Food writer Stefan Gates argues that it's not worth worrying about "food miles".

Are you a good person? Of course you are - you're lovely.

When it comes to food, I'd warrant that you care passionately about how your food's been produced; you'd rather your chicken wasn't tortured before handing over its precious muscle fibre, and you'd rather your lunch didn't chip away at the planet's ability to sustain itself.

So if you can, you buy fresh, local, seasonal food because keeping food miles to an absolute minimum is a no-brainer, isn't it?

Local food in the UK (if that's where you are): good. Food imported from New Zealand: bad. Well, not necessarily, as it turns out.

When I made the first series of Gastronuts, a CBBC food adventure series for children, we wanted to turn food miles into an irreverent but enlightening game that revealed how far our lunch has to travel to get to our plates. It involved a furry toy lamb and a very large catapult.

As we researched the item it transpired that the relationship between food miles and sustainability was nowhere near as clear-cut as we'd thought, and sometimes it simply didn't add up at all.

It was too late to change the scene, so we catapulted our lamb round to show the extraordinary distance that some food travels before it's eaten, without making any intelligent comments at all. It was a funny scene in the end. Slightly aimless, but very funny.

The term "food miles" was coined by Professor of Food Policy at City University, Tim Lang and featured in a famous 1994 report on The Dangers of Long-Distance Food Transport.

The report looked at a whole range of social and environmental issues relating to transporting food, but seeing as the title was The Food Miles Report, the main argument was invariably boiled down to the idea that the further food travels, the more fuel has been used, ergo the worse the carbon footprint.

The phrase "food miles" instantly became a mantra because it was nifty and simple, and no-one really questioned it because the food media world loves mantras and clichés.

We're fed mantras, buzzwords and clichés, such as "good, honest food" (I've never met a pie with a moral compass), "processed food is bad" (that would include homemade jam, then), "additives are bad" (so you'd rather have botulism in your bacon sandwich, sir?) and "food miles are bad".

But what's wrong with the food miles concept?

The problem is that transport accounts for just 11% of the carbon emissions embedded in the food system (according to a Carnegie Mellon University review of US government data 2008), and of that, the final delivery transport from producer/processor to retailer is even less.

A global agriculture research partnership CGIAR, puts it at 3% and Carnegie Mellon's report at 4%. It's not insignificant, but let's face it: it's tiny.

Agriculture as a whole accounts for a huge amount of global CO2 equivalent emissions - about 14-24%.

But this is where it gets really fascinating: of the direct agricultural emissions around 31% comes from enteric fermentation - cow and sheep producing gasses as a by-product of their digestion - and 32% produced by soil from crop production, fertiliser use and crop residues, mainly as nitrous oxide.

A vast proportion of agricultural carbon emissions come from animals and the soil itself, as well as deforestation, fuel usage from farm machinery, buildings, heating, water usage and the production of fertiliser, pesticide and herbicide.

So, when you analyse the production of lamb or apples from New Zealand, which has a climate, soil and hydro-electric power source that allows low-carbon production of lamb and apples, it's quite possible for the transport emissions involved in shipping it to the UK to be far outweighed by the savings made at the farm.

This was reported, to the barely-concealed glee of the authors, in a study by Lincoln University in New Zealand, entitled Food Miles - Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand's Agriculture Industry.

This apparent paradox is called comparative advantage.

Food writer Jay Rayner explains this concept of comparative advantage very well in his book A Greedy Man in a Hungry World.

You can happily grow potatoes in the clay soils of London, but compared to the better-suited soils of Lincolnshire, he writes: "You would need 20% more land. Or you'd have to bombard that land with military-strength doses of fertiliser. Either way, the footprint of your potatoes would be bigger."

Carbon footprint is just one of a multitude of decisions people make when you buying food, and sometimes it will be trumped by issues such as animal welfare, nutrition, taste, cost, or how many bags can be be squeezed onto the number 73 bus.

But there are still lots of wonderful reasons to buy locally-produced food.

Help your community by spending your money locally, strengthen the bonds between you, your neighbours and your farmers and take more interest in what you eat - it's all fantastic stuff.

Buy local food if it makes sense to you, but please don't buy into the lazy clichés that you're inevitably saving the planet by doing it.
Should we feel guilty about food miles? Join Stefan Gates online for a live debate at 21:00 GMT Monday 24 Feb following Food & Drink on BBC Two.

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Will buying locally-produced food save the planet? Food writer Stefan Gates argues that it's not worth worrying about "food miles". Are you a good person? Of course you are - you're lovely.

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How the myth of food miles hurts the planet

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How the myth of food miles hurts the planet

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Ethical shopping just got more complicated. The idea that only local produce is good is under attack. There is growing evidence to suggest that some air-freighted food is greener than food produced in the UK. Robin McKie and Caroline Davies report on how the concept of food miles became oversimplified - and is damaging the planet in the process.

Read the following article and summarise the key points in under 200 words.

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Mike Small and his wife, Karen, sat down last Thursday to a dinner of smoked fish pie crusted with mashed potato and served with purple-sprouting broccoli, an unremarkable family meal except for one key factor: every ingredient came from sources close to their home in Burntisland, Fife. 'The fish was Fife-landed, while the potatoes and broccoli were grown on nearby farms,' he says.

Nor was this a one-off culinary event. For the past six months Mike and Karen and their two children, Sorley and Alex, have consumed only food and drink bought in their home district.

This is the Fife Diet, developed by Mike Small as a response to the environmental dangers posed by carbon-emitting imports of Peruvian avocados, Kenyan green beans, New Zealand lamb and all those other foreign foodstuffs that now fill the shelves of our supermarkets. Each of these imported products involves the emission of carbon dioxide from the planes and ships that brought them to our shores.

So Mike Small argues that we should eat local produce and save the planet, an idea that has obliged his family - and a growing number of adherents to his cause - to eat meals of local lamb, pork and a great many dishes based on parsnips, beetroots, kale, potatoes, leeks and all the other root vegetables that typify the agricultural output of this wind-swept corner of Scotland.

This is the future of ethical eating, insists Small: the consumption of local produce at all costs. It is an attitude now shared by thousands around the UK and overseas, individuals who have decided to reject foods that have been transported over long distances by road, air or sea to their dinner plates. They even have their own name for themselves - locavores - and insist that their way is the only one to save the planet.

But the idea that 'only local is good' has come under attack. For a start, food grown in areas where there is high use of fertilisers and tractors is likely to be anything but carbon-friendly, it is pointed out. At the same time the argument against food miles - which show how far a product has been shipped and therefore how much carbon has been emitted in its transport - has been savaged by experts. 'The concept of food miles is unhelpful and stupid. It doesn't inform about anything except the distance travelled,' Dr Adrian Williams, of the National Resources Management Centre at Cranfield University, told The Observer last week.

Given that the food miles cause was hailed only a few months ago as the means to empower the carbon-conscious consumer, such criticisms are striking, and suggest that some careful reassessment of the concept's usefulness has been going on.

Certainly the issues involved no longer seem clear-cut. Consider that supermarket stalwart: green beans from Kenya. These are air-freighted to stores to allow consumers to buy fresh beans when British varieties are out of season. Each packet has a little sticker with the image of a plane on it to indicate that carbon dioxide from aviation fuel was emitted in bringing them to this country. And that, surely, is bad, campaigners argue. Rising levels of carbon dioxide are trapping more and more sunlight and inexorably heating the planet, after all.

But a warning that beans have been air-freighted does not mean we should automatically switch to British varieties if we want to help the climate. Beans in Kenya are produced in a highly environmentally-friendly manner. 'Beans there are grown using manual labour - nothing is mechanised,' says Professor Gareth Edwards-Jones of Bangor University, an expert on African agriculture. 'They don't use tractors, they use cow muck as fertiliser; and they have low-tech irrigation systems in Kenya. They also provide employment to many people in the developing world. So you have to weigh that against the air miles used to get them to the supermarket.'

When you do that - and incorporate these different factors - you make the counter-intuitive discovery that air-transported green beans from Kenya could actually account for the emission of less carbon dioxide than British beans. The latter are grown in fields on which oil-based fertilisers have been sprayed and which are ploughed by tractors that burn diesel. In the words of Gareth Thomas, Minister for Trade and Development, speaking at a recent Department for International Development air-freight seminar: 'Driving 6.5 miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK.'

'Half the people who boycott air-freighted beans think they are doing some good for the environment. Then they go on a budget airline holiday to Prague the next weekend,' adds Bill Vorley, head of sustainable markets for the International Institute for Environment and Development. 'They are just making gestures.'

It is not that the concept of food miles is wrong; it is just too simplistic, say experts. In fact, balancing your diet with its carbon costs turns out to be a fiendishly tricky business. Consider these two staples: apples and lettuce. The former are harvested in September and October. Some are sold fresh; the rest are chill stored. For most of the following year, they still represent good value - in terms of carbon emissions - for British shoppers. But by August those Coxs and Braeburns will have been in store for 10 months. The amount of energy used to keep them fresh for that length of time will then overtake the carbon cost of shipping them from New Zealand. It is therefore better for the environment if UK shoppers buy apples from New Zealand in July and August rather than those of British origin.

Then there is the example of lettuces. In Britain these are grown in winter, in greenhouses or polytunnels which require heating. At those times it is better - in terms of carbon emissions - to buy field-grown lettuce from Spain. But in summer, when no heating is required, British is best. Picking the right sources for your apples and lettuces depends on the time of year.

'Working out carbon footprints is horribly complicated,' says Edwards-Jones. 'It is not just where something is grown and how far it has to travel, but also how it is grown, how it is stored, how it is prepared.'

This uncertainty even extends to the Soil Association, which announced last year that it was considering halting its endorsement of air-freighted organic food because their emissions negated the benefits of growing it organically. But now the organisation has dropped the plan and is to continue to endorse air-freighted organic food, provided it is grown under conditions that meet its ethical trade standards.

In addition, the government has revealed that it is changing its stance on food miles, as was recently stressed by Gareth Thomas. 'Food miles alone are not the best way to judge whether the food we eat is sustainable. We need a better-informed food miles debate. Long term, the only fair option is to ensure the prices of the goods we consume, including organic produce, cover the environmental costs wherever the goods are from. We also need a labelling system that tells consumers about how the product is reducing poverty.'

Nor is this argument lost on the nation's supermarkets. 'An airplane sticker is of no environmental value whatsoever, as studies have shown air-freighted products are not necessarily less sustainable than local produce grown in heated greenhouses,' said a spokesman for Tesco. 'Thus we may remove those plane labels in future. What people are actually interested in is the amount of carbon that is emitted during a product's manufacture and import.' As a result, Tesco has promised to put carbon labels on 30 of its own-brand products in the near future: six types of potatoes, 11 types of tomatoes, five types of washing power and liquid capsules, four types of orange juice and six types of light bulbs. 'We want to see how customers react and find out how it affects their purchasing behaviour,' added the spokesman.

In fact, these carbon cost labels have already been tested on a small range of products, including Walkers crisps and Cadburys chocolates. Packets and wrappers have a small C with a downward arrow through it, beside a figure which represents the number of grams of carbon dioxide emitted during the manufacture of that product. In this way it is revealed that packets of Walker's Ready Salted and Salt and Vinegar crisps each generate 75g of carbon, while the cheese and onion variety produced only 74g.

Now this limited range of products is to be expanded and will appear in Tesco and other stores, says the Carbon Trust which - with the British Standards Institute - has been involved in calculating how a meaningful carbon inventory can be compiled for foodstuffs.

Not surprisingly, such exercises have proved to be extraordinarily tricky, says Graham Sinden of the Carbon Trust. 'You have to take into account emissions that occurred in the farmyard, for example. Cows and sheep produce methane, which is far more damaging a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Similarly, fertilisers produce nitrogen oxides that are also dangerous. Then you have the issue of transport and processing. Taking a sheep to the slaughterhouse produces carbon emissions, for instance. Cooking is another factor. That requires heat that in turn releases carbon dioxide. After that you need to store products. That often requires refrigeration, which requires electricity, which releases carbon dioxide. Estimating how long a product will be kept in a store and how efficient is its refrigeration is not easy to assess, but it has to be done.

'Then you have to work out how long your product will be kept at home once it has been purchased. You also have to estimate how efficiently it will be cooked. And finally you have to work out how much carbon is involved in its packaging and how much will be emitted in disposing of those wrappers and labels once discarded.'

For some products, such as crisps, a carbon number is easy to calculate. But for others, the process will be much more awkward. How can you accurately calculate a pizza's carbon footprint when it often comes with a variety of toppings?

Even if you could get a carbon label that accurately reflects a product's impact on the environment and identify products that have high footprints, would you be right in boycotting them? In many cases, such as brands of coffee, these products come from struggling third world nations. Using our Western concerns with the climate as an excuse to increase poverty there has dubious ethical consequences.

In short, the issue of trying to reduce the emissions produced by food is bedevilled by complexity. Even replacing food miles with a carbon footprint figure will only partly simplify the issues, a point stressed by Tara Garnett of the Food Climate Research Network.

'There is only one way of being sure that you cut down on your carbon emissions when buying food: stop eating meat, milk, butter and cheese,' said Garnett. 'These come from ruminants - sheep and cattle - that produce a great deal of harmful methane. In other words, it is not the source of the food that matters but the kind of food you eat. Whether people are prepared to cut these from their shopping lists is a different issue, however.'

The chickpea: A green dilemma

Chickpeas are sold in supermarkets in two versions: dried or cooked. The carbon footprint of the latter is far higher than the former. The only processing involved in drying chickpeas is to lay them out in the sun to drive off moisture. By contrast, heat is needed to cook chickpeas before they are tinned. Hence the carbon gram total for tins of cooked chickpeas would be far greater than those on packets of the dried variety.

'That seems straightforward,' says Graham Sinden, of the Carbon Trust. 'But you can't eat dried chickpeas. You have to cook them. And when you take them home you find the carbon you emitted when cooking those chickpeas exceeds the figure for the tinned variety - because cooking small portions at home is inefficient compared with that of large industrial kitchens.'

As a result, when the trust system is taken up and used widely, the gram measure on a packet of dried chickpeas will include an estimate of the heat that will be used in a customer's home to cook them. But that figure will be a guess, for it will depend on whether the customer uses gas or electricity for cooking. The former is more efficient and less prone to carbon emissions.

As for individuals who use renewable energy to heat their homes and kitchens, they would completely negate the point of carbon labels in many cases. 'That is why it is impossible to have accurate carbon labels on a lot of products,' says Gareth Edwards-Jones, of Bangor University.
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How the myth of food miles hurts the planet

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Mike Small and his wife, Karen, sat down last Thursday to a dinner of smoked fish pie crusted with mashed potato and served with purple-sprouting broccoli, an unremarkable family meal except for one key factor: every ingredient came from sources close to their home in Burntisland, Fife.

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Watch the BBC interview with Jay Rayner. using this as a starting point, explain why it might be better to focus on things such as LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS rather than food miles.

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FOOD MILES - JAY RAYNER INTERVIEW - BBC WORLD NEWS

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Shipping vast quantities of food around the world, at an environmental cost has led one academic to coin the term "food miles" a convenient illustration of the distance your banana has traveled, from plantation to plate. But one of Britain's most prominent food critics has written a new book, challenging the perceived wisdom that local is better.

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The pros and cons of food miles in under 2 minutes

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The pros and cons of food miles in under 2 minutes

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Watch the short video and make a note of the arguments for and against buying locally

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Listen to Jay Rayner. What arguments does he put forward to suggest locally grown food can actually be worse than that which involves lots of food miles?

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Jay Rayner: A Greedy Man in a Hungry World

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Hungry for the truth? Order your copy of Jay Rayner's A Greedy Man in a Hungry World http://amzn.to/17uj2nj and discover why local, organic food isn't going to keep our bellies full. The doctrine of local food is dead. Farmers' markets are merely a lifestyle choice for the affluent middle classes.

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Listen to the short interview with Tim Lang, the person responsible for coining the phrase 'food miles'. What key points does he discuss/raise?

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Food's carbon footprint 1:58 Tim Lang, creator of the ''Food Miles'' concept, discusses the future of our food supply and what's at stake.

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Define the following:

FOOD MILES

CARBON FOOTPRINT

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Food miles is the distance food is transported from the time of its making until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when testing the environmental impact of food, such as the carbon footprint of the food.

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 distance 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. These make a small part of the greenhouse gas emissions created by food; 83% of overall emissions of CO ₂ are in production phases.

Several 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. 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. In comparison, the percentage of total energy used in home food preparation is 26% and in food processing is 29%, far greater than transportation.

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." The increased distance traveled by food in developed countries was caused by the globilization of food trade, which increased by 4 times since 1961. 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. The Carbon Trust notes that to understand the carbon emissions from food production, all the carbon-emitting processes that occur as a result of getting food from the field to our plates need to be considered, including production, origin, seasonality and home care.

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.

With processed foods that are made of many different ingredients, it is very complicated, though not impossible, to calculate the 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.

Wal-Mart publicized a press releasing that stated food travelled 1,500 miles (2,400 km) before it reaches customers. The shocking statistics aroused public concern about food miles. According to Jane Black, a food writer who covers food politics, the number was derived from a small database. The 22 terminal markets from which the data was collected handled 30% of the United States produce.

More recently, iOS and Android apps are appearing which allow consumers to get various information (nutritional information, ...) and track the origin of products they buy and sometimes also get additional information such as the distance the product has travelled from its production location to the consumer (i.e. OpenLabel, Glow, Open Food Facts, ...). These apps may rely on barcode scanning. Also, smartphones can simply scan the QR code, after which a link in the browser opens up showing the production location of the product (i.e. Farm to Fork project, ...).

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 certification label, or a label from another robust and independent scheme, food exports might make a bad situation worse. Only a very small percentage of what importers pay will end up in the hands of plantation workers. 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 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (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 than 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 with ISO 14040, entire supply chains providing German consumers with food were investigated, comparing local food with food of European and global provenance. Large-scale agriculture reduces unit costs associated with food production and transportation, leading to increased efficiency and decreased energy use per kilogram of food by economies of scale. Research from the Justus Liebig University Giessen show that small food production operations may cause even more environmental impact than bigger operations in terms of energy use per kilogram, even though food miles are lower. Case studies of lamb, beef, wine, apples, fruit juices and pork show that the concept of food miles is too simple to account for all factors of food production.

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 ) 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. Christopher 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.

Livestock production as a source of greenhouse gases

Farm animals account for between 20% and 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) 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 than food miles.

"Local" food miles

A commonly ignored element is the last mile. For example, a gallon of gasoline could transport 5 kg of meat over 60,000 miles (97,000 km) by road (40 tonner at 8 mpg) 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 the last mile 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.

Even a full lifecycle analysis accounts only for the environmental effects of food production and consumption. However it is one of the widely agreed three pillars of sustainable development, namely environmental, social and economic.

1. ^ Paxton, A (1994). The Food Miles Report: The dangers of long-distance food transport. SAFE Alliance, London, UK. http://www.sustainweb.org/publications/?id=191

2. ^ Weber, C.; Matthews, H. (2008). "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States". Environmental Science & Technology. 42 (10): 3508-3513. doi:10.1021/es702969f. PMID 18546681.

3. ^ "Sources and Resources for "Local Food: The Economics" - Worldwatch Institute". www.worldwatch.org. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019.

4. Smith, A. et al. (2005) The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development: Final report. DEFRA, London. See ^ https://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/reports/foodmiles/default.asp Archived May 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine

5. ^ Chi, Kelly Rae, James MacGregor and Richard King (2009). Fair Miles: Recharting the food miles map. IIED/Oxfam.

6. ^ Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). "Defra, UK - Science Search". defra.gov.uk.

7. Saunders, C; Barber, A; Taylor, G, ^ Food Miles - Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand's Agriculture Industry Archived May 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine (2006). Research Report No. 285. Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit, Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand.

8. 'Food miles' minor element of carbon footprint, ^ http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=40471. See also a range of publications by Professor Edwards-Jones and a team of researchers at Bangor University, http://www.bangor.ac.uk/senrgy/staff/edwards.php.en

9. ^ Weber, Christopher L. (2008). "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States". Environmental Science. 42 (10): 3508-3513. doi:10.1021/es702969f. PMID 18546681.

10. To see details of the United Nations research into meat and the environment, visit: ^ http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html. See also Steinfeld, H et al. (2006) Livestock's long shadow: Environmental issues and options. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on August 6, 2014.

11. Garnett, T (2007) Meat and dairy production and consumption. Exploring the livestock sector's contribution to the ^ UK's greenhouse gas emissions and assessing what less greenhouse gas intensive systems of production and consumption might look like Working paper produced a part of the work of the Food Climate Research Network, Centre for Environmental Strategy,University of Surrey https://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/TGlivestock_env_sci_pol_paper.pdf

12. ^ "How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?".

13. ^ Food miles are less important to environment than food choices, study concludes, Jane Liaw, special to Mongabay, June 2, 2008

Edwards-Jones, G.; Milà; Canals, L.; Hounsome, N.; Truninger, M.; Koerber, G.; Hounsome, B.; et al. (2008). "Testing the assertion that 'local food is best': the challenges of an evidence-based approach". Trends in Food Science & Technology. 19 (5): 265-274. doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2008.01.008.

Waye, V (2008). "Carbon Footprints, Food Miles and the Australian Wine Industry". Melbourne Journal of International Law. 9: 271-300.

Weber, C.; Matthews, H. (2008). "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States". Environmental Science & Technology. 42 (10): 3508-3513. doi:10.1021/es702969f. PMID 18546681.

Iles, A (2005). "Learning in sustainable agriculture: Food miles and missing objects". Environmental Values. 14 (2): 163-183. doi:10.3197/0963271054084894.

Engelhaupt, E (2008). "Do food miles matter?". Environmental Science & Technology. 42 (10): 3482. doi:10.1021/es087190e. PMID 18546672.

McKie, R. (2008). How the myth of food miles hurts the planet. Retrieved March 23, 2008, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving

Holt, D.; Watson, A. (2008). "Exploring the dilemma of local sourcing versus international development -the case of the Flower Industry" (PDF). Business Strategy and the Environment. 17 (5): 318-329. doi:10.1002/bse.623.

Hogan, Lindsay and Sally Thorpe (2009). Issues in food miles and carbon labelling. ABARE (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics) https://web.archive.org/web/20110301214222/http://abare.gov.au/interactive/09_ResearchReports/FoodMiles/

Chi, Kelly Rae, James MacGregor and Richard King (2009). Fair Miles: Recharting the food miles map. IIED/Oxfam. http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=15516IIED

Blanke, M.; Burdick, B. (2005). "Food (miles) for thought: energy balance for locally-grown versus imported apple fruit". Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 12 (3): 125-127. doi:10.1065/espr2005.05.252. PMID 15986993. S2CID 33467271.

Borot, A., J. MacGregor and A. Graffham(eds) (2008). Standard Bearers: Horticultural exports and private standards in Africa. IIED, London.

DEFRA (2009) Food Statistics Pocketbook 2009. DEFRA, London. See https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/food-statistics-pocketbook

foodpocketstats/FoodPocketbook2009.pdf.

ECA (2009) Shaping Climate-Resilient Development: A framework for decision-making. See www.gefweb.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/ECA_Shaping_Climate%20Resilent_Development.pdf.

Garnett, T. (2008) Cooking Up a Storm: Food, greenhouse gas emissions and our changing climate. Food Climate Research Network Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, UK.

Jones, A. (2006) A Life Cycle Analysis of UK Supermarket Imported Green Beans from Kenya. Fresh Insights No. 4. IIED/DFID/NRI,

London/Medway, Kent.

Magrath, J. and E. Sukali (2009) The Winds of Change: Climate change, poverty and the environment in Malawi. Oxfam International, Oxford.

Muuru, J. (2009) Kenya's Flying Vegetables: Small farmers and the 'food miles' debate. Policy Voice Series. Africa Research Institute, London.

Plassman, K. and G. Edwards-Jones (2009) Where Does the Carbon Footprint Fall? Developing a carbon map of food production. IIED, London. See www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/16023IIED.pdf

Smith, A. et al. (2005) The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development: Final report. DEFRA, London. See https://web.archive.org/web/20080527094731/http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/reports/foodmiles/default.asp.

The Strategy Unit (2008) Food: An analysis of the issues. Cabinet Office, London.

Wangler, Z. (2006) Sub-Saharan African Horticultural Exports to the UK and Climate Change: A literature review. Fresh Insights

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Food miles is the distance food is transported from the time of its making until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when testing the environmental impact of food, such as the carbon footprint of the food. The concept of food miles originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom.

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Calculating the food miles for an exotic fruit salad

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Calculating the food miles for an exotic fruit salad

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Using the following link calculate both the air miles (in kilometers) and C02 emissions that have resulted from the exotic fruit salad you have just eaten. Note: Calculations should be based on air transport.
What is the total distance travelled and CO2 emissions?

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6. 2 Environmental risks - Carbon footprints of food.