What are food miles ? They are the miles
your food travel from start to finish, from prosuction to consumption, from
field to plate. So many people passively buy food from their grocery store
without much consideration from where it has come from. Have you ever
considered that when you buy your weekly bunch of bananas they have been
shipped from Guatemala ? Globalization has caused an increase to food
miles. Connor Steve, author of Buy Local
Produce and Save the World said, ”The environmental cost of food
transport is given as US 3.8 billion dollars a year, and it is claimed that it
in-creased by 12% in the period between 1992 and 2002.” He also said, “If all
of the U.K. food came from within 20 km of where we live, we could save £2.1
billion a year in environmental and congestion costs.”
Two word can be said about food and its
massive transportation industry : Greenhouse gases. Our desire for
whatever food we want all year long is causing harm to our environment. Eating
locally would cause these CO2 emissions to decrease.
The NYTimes said, “Food is traveling
because transport has become so cheap in a world of globalization,” said
Frederic Hauge, head of Norway’s environmental group Bellona. “If it was just a
matter of processing fish cheaper in China, I’d be happy with it traveling
there. The problem is pollution.” Previously, there have been no taxes on the
transportation of food, but countries specifically in the European Union are
starting to force the cost of pollution on countries taxing transportation.
Transportation is not the only issue causing an increase to fossil fuel
emissions. Production is also another problem. Studies show that in some cases,
the transportation of goods has a lower carbon footprint then those produced
locally.
Another problem is also due to the increase of
humans eating meat. The FAO records that farm animals account for between 20% and 30%
of global greenhouse
gas emissions. This number accounts for the deforestation for
grazing lands.
So how do we improve this problem ? Christopher
Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie
Mellon University said that adopting a vegetarian diet would reduce
emissions more than if we became localivores. But this debate on what should
this populated earth eat continues still. Nevertheless, we should consider our
food miles and how our demand for certain foods affect the environment.
-MAU
There is a growing movement within the U.S. to support local farmers, which, if it garners more support, I believe will reduce much of this problem. By choosing to shop at a farmer's market people not only cut down on their own carbon footprints, but are supporting their local economies. If that's not enough of a reason, produce at such markets are also generally not genetically tampered with and are guaranteed to be fresh if coming from a closer proximity.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the problem with this is cost, however, as we've been learning in class. Produce from major corporations are cheaper because of their mass production thus leading to the failure of small farms all over the country for their lack of ability to compete with such prices. With only a handful of big companies monopolizing the entire market it leaves little room for small farmers to be as conveniently available. That said, I think that the U.S. should evaluate these problems and more effectively address them in its policy-making.
-Dana