Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:56 — 17.4MB)
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More
Wendell Berry, the American farmer, writer and thinker, famously said that “Eating is an agricultural act”. The quote now has a life of its own, but it is worth remembering that Berry used it to introduce a longer version of his advice to the urban consumer who wants to know what they can do. The short version is “eat responsibly”. To do that, though, you have to understand how agriculture and the food we eat are connected, how they form part of an entire system. My guest on this episode understands more than most people about how the various parts of the food system fit together, and it is a lot more complex than many people can imagine.
For a start, take the label on the apple in the image on the left. In case you cannot read it, it says: “Forget organic. Eat local.” Nice, simple advice. But more or less pointless. There’s so much more to food systems than just the distance the food travels.
Tim Lang – who coined the phrase food miles – agrees. When he visited Rome recently for a conference on sustainable food I took the opportunity to get together to chat about the complexities of food systems. Our conversation ranged from high-level government policy to what you do with the skin of a mango you’ve just eaten, the point being that once you start to look at food systems as a whole, those two aspects of how we eat become closely intertwined.
Notes
- Gareth Edward-Jones’ paper Does eating local food reduce the environmental impact of food production and enhance consumer health? is a good introduction to some of the difficulties with a simple view of food miles.
- Tim mentioned the work of Carlos Monteiro, of the University of Sao Paolo, on ultra-processed food, and Barry Popkin, of the University of North Carolina, on the nutrition transition.
- That quote of Wendell Berry’s is a pithy soundbite, but the whole essay The pleasures of eating is well worth your time.
- And if you fancy a really deep dive into recent thinking on some aspects of food systems, how about this report from the European Commission: Energy use in the EU food sector: State of play and opportunities for improvement.
- Banner photo by Duncan Brown.
Let’s talk food miles.
Food miles is defined to be the distance your food travels to get to your plate. More specifically, food miles is often brought up in relation to how much greenhouse gas emissions are involved in transporting one’s food. The idea of food miles however, cannot be brought up without including the push to eat local. Sometimes called a “locavore,” someone who eats locally tries to only purchase and consume food that comes from the area immediately around them. Although, “immediately around them” can mean multitude of different distances. Popularly, the locavore tries to eat within a 100 mile radius of their home.
The ideology behind pushing for a locally-based diet stems from wanting to both decrease food miles and support one’s local economy. Neither of which are a bad thing. However, there is still debate surrounding whether this push for locavorism really makes sense in the grand scheme of climate change.
Many papers have been published and studies have been done exploring how food miles effect the carbon footprint of food. How much of a foods carbon emissions can be attributed to the distance it travels?
What seems to be a straightforward question turns out to be anything but. A multitude of factors influence a foods carbon footprint and not all food is created equal which further complicates the equation. A few examples of things that influence a foods carbon footprint: where it was grown, how it is transported, what it is, how much water was needed to grow it, how much fertilizer was put on the field, if it is a processed food, how much energy is used to produce it, etc. As you can see, the question of a foods carbon footprint quickly becomes an inquiry into a whole life history of that food.
At this point you’re probably thinking: okay Lilja, what gives, if you don’t have any answers to these questions, why are you writing about it? Good question.
A complex issue such as this requires a complex solution. In most instances, this solution will not be a one size fits all scenario, it will differ from person to person, community to community. So, no I do not have an answer for you, but what I do have are some pieces of research I want you to think about.
Ultimately there is so much more to the carbon impact of food than just how far it travels.
In doing research for this post I came across this short episode from the Eat This Podcast. The episode is an interview with Tim Lang, a professor of food policy based in London and the man who coined the term “food miles”. I highly recommend you take the 25 minutes to listen, as it is quite interesting. https://www.eatthispodcast.com/going-further-than-food-miles/#t=1479
An image from the Eat This Podcast website.
Ultimately, Lang argues that just the distance food travels is not equivalent to the carbon emissions. He states that the two biggest ways to downsize carbon emissions when it comes to the foods you eat are: meat and dairy reduction and waste less food.
As a professor of food policy, I would like to believe Tim Lang knows what he is talking about. Regardless, it is important to do some research of one’s own on the matter.
A 2008 study, “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States” by Weber and Matthews examines the effectiveness of buying local versus a dietary shift. They concluded that:
While this is a pretty compelling conclusion, it is worth noting that Weber and Matthews contend in a later paper that eating local can still be valuable. Particularly they claim that they too “contract with local agriculture suppliers” (Weber and Matthews, “Response to Comment on ‘Food-Miles’”) for a multitude of reasons including: “freshness, taste, heirloom preservation, and support of [their] regional economy” (Weber and Matthews, “Response to Comment on ‘Food-Miles’”).
You’ll notice in the citation that these claims came as a response to a comment made on their research. Largely, the researchers who wrote the comment, Hopp and Gussow, were critiquing Weber and Matthews for drawing too large of a conclusion considering the breadth of their data. It could be argued that aggregate data is never suppose to be a perfect picture anyways. But, I digress. The comment written by Hopp and Gussow is not without its good points however, they are not pertinent to this post.
Hopp and Gussow still agree that the Weber and Matthews paper is useful for estimating greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production, which is what we are focused on in this post. Should you be interested in reading further in to Hopp and Gussow’s interpretation of the Weber and Matthews paper, the title is “Comment on ‘Food Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choice in the United States.” It was published in Environmental Science Technology.
Okay, enough with the science community back and forth. Back to food miles.
Largely, Weber and Matthews seem to share the same ideology as Lang – eat more plants, eat less red meat. It would seem that this conclusion supports the idea that it is not so much about where your food comes from, but what your food is.
Food miles has been a hot topic in environmental circles for some years now and the idea of becoming a locavore has permeated into popular culture. The notion of decreasing one’s carbon footprint via food choice is powerful and stems from a good place. Allowing environmentalism into your day to day life choices ultimately can be good for mind, body, and planet. However, I write this post, not to confuse you, not to say the push for local food is hopeless, not to say you must go vegan tomorrow.
I write this post to encourage deeper thought and questioning of common beliefs that supply a simple solution to a complex problem.
NOTE
This post is not meant to decrease the value of buying local. Supporting one’s own community and economy can have huge benefits. I am only providing a more full picture of the food miles argument than is often provided to the general public.
Share this:TwitterFacebookPinterestEmailLike this:Like Loading…