Here is an article by Richard Reesor of our community, who shared it in our adult Sunday School class on Sunday. It has sparked lots of good reflection and discussion - we're hoping it can continue on this blog!
Richard writes:
I have noted recently many articles published in the media encouraging a movement towards local eating spawned in part by the book entitled “The 100 Mile Diet”. The introduction to the “100 Mile Diet” contains the following quotes,
“The year of eating locally began with one beautiful meal and one ugly statistic…According to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, the food we eat now typically travels between 1500 and 3000 miles from farm to plate.”
The writers go on to chronicle a year of eating food only produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver apartment. They provide an interesting collection of anecdotes describing their quest for a local diet. The message I took from the book is that this diet comes with significant sacrifice, but in the interest of building community and in the interest of the environment, society should move towards this model of a food production system. Indeed, many readers have picked up on this message, and in particular, they have picked up on the environmental message. A recent article I read makes the following claims,
“ ..in Manitoba, the average food ingredient travels 2000 km…the implications of our long-distance diet aren’t solely economic. They come with severe environmental costs…”
I am a farmer in the business of producing fresh produce and transporting it long distances, so I am interested when people write about such issues – especially when they imply these activities are unjust. Over the past couple of years I have read many similar articles making similar claims, and so I began to question my own integrity as a producer of food which is largely consumed in distant markets. (This is the case for most Canadian farmers – especially Canadian grain, oilseed , pork and beef producers.) As I thought more about the question, I decided to try to calculate the actual environmental cost of transporting food that I produced. I came up with some surprising findings. Relying on my experience with the business and a basic understanding of the science of CO2 emissions, I will share with you the following evidence:
1) A typical trip for a load of fresh fruits and vegetables arriving in Canada by truck travels 1500 miles. Typical trucks carrying produce consume 200 gallons of fuel during a trip of this length.
2) A typical load of produce traveling by truck over long distances weighs 40,000 lbs.
3) A typical serving of produce weighs 4 ounces. Therefore, the load carries 160,000 servings. At an average of 6 servings per day, this is enough produce to feed one person for 73 years, or most of a lifetime. (160,000/6/365)
4) The emissions created from combusting 200 gallons of fuel roughly equates to 1 tonne of CO2. At current prices, the cost of sequestering this carbon is about $20. This is a rough estimate of the cost of the pollution created by consuming only fruits and vegetables produced by a 1500 mile diet for a lifetime.
To summarize, if an individual in good faith took the advice of the food miles logic, and bought only fruits and vegetables produced locally rather than imported from outside Canada, in a lifetime this consumer would save 1 tonne of emissions currently valued at $20 – all things being equal.
However, all things are not equal. If this consumer decides to eat only locally produced fruits and vegetables, then we must presume that this person will eat preserved locally grown produce when fresh is not available. In fact, this is the advice contained in books like the 100 Mile Diet. The flaw in the logic of this argument is that the energy required to preserve and store vegetables to sustain us between harvests is missing from the equation. I suspect this energy is greater than the energy it takes to produce fresh vegetables and transport them from southern climates in our winter months. For example, a typical truck load of fresh fruit or vegetables is cooled and refrigerated to 3C for 3 days before it is delivered for sale to a grocery store. If we froze the same 40,000 lbs of locally produced fruits and vegetables and stored at minus 20C for an average of 6 months, sure we would save transport energy, but the energy required to freeze and store the vegetables I suspect would be far greater than the energy saved in transport. Likewise, if we preserve by canning, we must calculate the energy required to bring 40,000 lbs of produce to a rolling boil for 3 minutes and compare that with the energy consumed by transporting fresh produce as calculated above.
I would now like to take the discussion one step further. I would like to add the fact that ocean freight transport is more energy efficient than truck transport by a factor of roughly seven. Using this information, we can then extrapolate that food transported by ocean freight as far as 10,000 miles from home can be consumed and the carbon emissions created by transport are no worse than the foods we typically consume in a 1500 mile diet. Further, I will add from my experience working and living in the less developed world, I have observed that foods coming from these economies, generally are produced using significantly less energy than similar foods produced locally here in Canada. Developing world farmers are more likely to rely on human labour and animal traction than fuel burning machinery to till the soil and control weeds in their crops. Also, they are less likely to utilize energy intensive synthetic fertilizers opting to use compost and manures instead.
Moreover, the natural growing conditions of tropical climates allow the cultivation of perennial crops such as sugar cane rather than annual crops such as corn to produce similar food stuffs such as sugar much more efficiently. As an example, I am told that ethanol produced from sugar cane is 70% more energy efficient than ethanol produced from annual crops such as Canadian corn. Indeed, it is so much more efficient that Canadian ethanol producers are asking the Canadian government to erect trade barriers against Brazilian ethanol imports so Canadian producers can compete. Is it just to deny these ethanol producers and other less developed world farmers the right to sell their products to developed world consumers, especially in light of the energy and emissions savings possible from consuming their products?
There are many more issues and exceptions I could discuss. However I think I have said enough to make my point. I believe the logic in the food miles concept is fundamentally flawed. The distance from producer to consumer may be the least important consideration when considering the environmental impact of various food choices. How the food is produced (energy intensive methods vs. low input), how the food is preserved (eaten fresh or sun dried vs. canned or kept in cold storage) how the food is transported (over land or water vs. air freight) and how far the consumer travels to purchase food are more important questions.
Rather than choosing foods to eat based on the distance the food travels, I believe a more just food buying decision making rule would be to buy food with the best value - a combination of price, quality and nutrition - regardless of where it is produced. Further, I choose whenever possible to buy foods coming from the less developed world - when they are of equal or better value. I believe this to be the essence of fair trade. For example, I have no qualms at all about eating basmati rice from India - a sun dried, ocean transported product grown 10,000 miles from my home rather than potatoes grown locally. I believe that when I eat rice sourced from places like India that I am getting good value and contributing to the economic well being of less developed world farmers. Further, the analysis presented would indicate that rather than being severely damaging to the environment, the environmental impact of my buying decision is negligible at worst and may be favourable to eating a local substitute like potatoes.
I present my analysis to help initiate further discussion on this important topic. I welcome feedback and comments.
Best regards,
Richard Reesor
Stouffville, ON
crreesor@hotmail.com
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9 comments:
Fascinating stuff - and I agree with Richard.
So we should remember, there are likely several perspectives.
Here's another one: What happens when petroleum runs out? Are we working to find an alternate fuel? Are we working on finding an alternate fuel that will be available for everyone and not just the corporate conglomerate that invents it (and their friends)? Will our children be able to afford it?
Are we working on supporting local production that makes sense and can be sustained even through a stressful transformation of society? If our children's future is part of the question let's be a bit more sophisticated then usual about how we measure "value".
Do we operate on a faith that something will be developed that will make it work? Who is doing the work? Can they be trusted?
Just a few questions...
Thanks for this, Richard. I appreciate your taking the time and care to do this kind of analysis, and I think it's very good and important. I had never thought about a number of the issues you raise. You help us to think more deeply about these issues, and not settle for simplistic logic or solutions, and I think you're right on the money.
Another of the shortcomings, it seems to me, of the logic of the 100 Mile Diet, was pointed out recently by a Honduran pastor who said he thought the idea was "from the devil." When asked why, he said it does not have integrity for affluent North Americans to seek to only "buy local" when the same affluent North Americans seek to SELL their (our) products all over the world. The 100 Mile Diet approach, he suggested, can be little more than another means of hoarding wealth if it is not also combined with a "100 Mile Selling Radius" (or something to that effect).
I think these are vital and valid points, and ought to be taken very seriously.
Something that I would certainly want to add to your list of criteria for buying food - in addition to "price, quality, and nutrition" - would be the conditions in which it is grown. I am glad that as "a a farmer in the business of producing fresh produce and transporting it long distances" you are so aware and so careful and conscientious about the impact - environmentally and otherwise - of your way of doing business. I think all of us should follow your example and do this kind of analysis of our own forms of earning our livelihoods.
However, I think you'll agree that much of the way the international economy is currently configured is NOT so careful and conscientious about its impact, environmental and otherwise. For instance, products of similar or superior "price, quality, and nutrition" from different parts of the world may well be grown under the auspices of multi-national corporations that do not take the same care about environmental impact that you do with your business. In fact, a great many of these corporations in fact locate where they do precisely because they can avoid environmental regulation, and avoid the costs of dealing with their environmental impacts. The same Honduran pastor I mentioned above talks about multinationals that have moved into Honduras (after a similar cycle in Mexico, I believe), offering jobs and demanding certain conditions (such as very low levels of taxation or none at all)... and after operating in the community for a while, essentially holding the government and local community hostage by demanding "favourable" conditions (that is, no environmental regulation, no requirement to pay for environmental damage, etc., etc.) or they will pick up and relocate somewhere else (and take those jobs with them)...
We also know of many, many cases of these kinds of corporations involved in many other serious forms of violence and coersion as part of their means of producing products that may appear in our stores as being of similar or superior "price, quality, and nutrition."
Part of the DNA of these corporations, of course, is that they can maximize profits by moving to where conditions are most "favourable" for their profit-making (not necessarily more "favourable" for the people who live there, or their children or grandchildren...). In other words, they can function and be "efficient" as businesses in part because of their ability to impose a one-size-fits-all system on a community or region and not adapt or be responsive to - or even be aware of or care about - "local" realities. And when one particular "locality" ceases to maximimize profits to the degree that they wish, they pack up and go to the next place, and leave the "locals" to clean up - and pay for - the mess.
So, although I think your analysis and calculations of efficiency, emissions, etc. are very good and important, I think the above analysis also has to be part of the picture when we talk about the impact - environmental and otherwise - of our purchasing patterns. Who is producing the food in our grocery stores (and the t-shirts on our backs. and the computer keyboards on which we type blog comments), and in what conditions?
It seems to me that what we are really talking about, in the urgent agenda of how to live more sustainably, is the need for a significant TRANSFORMATION in the way we live. This is not just a series of calculations of food miles and carbon emissions and the costs of carbon sequestration. This, it seems to me, is about the kind of profound CULTURAL transformation that is absolutely necessary if we are to live in ways that do not destroy our environment.
And here, it seems to me, one of the real benefits of the 100 Mile Diet concept is that it can serve as a helpful agent of cultural change in that it:
- promotes greater understanding and personal connection with food, food production, and the condition of the local environment. These are all things of which I know, Richard, you are intimately aware. But many (most) of us are not, and so becoming more knowledgeable about food, food production, and the condition of our local environment is a good thing.
- takes away the distance and anonymity that provide the opportunity for some corporations to behave in ways overseas that the typical consumer in the grocery store would never tolerate in his/her own community.
- encourages a sense of understanding of natural limits... we simply cannot have anything we want, whenever we want it, and live a sustainable lifestyle. Becoming aware of what can and does in fact grow locally can, it seems to me, be a good and important step.
- encourages a spirit of relationship and cooperation and action. People that are learning more about their local communities are more likely to get involved, to CARE, to talk to one another about things that matter, and potentially to get involved with other issues as well.
- people becoming more aware of food, food production, and the local environment are also more likely to grow some of their own food - a good and important move toward sustainability.
- and I could go on...
All this is to say that I think your analysis is right on, Richard, and a vital reminder not to be simplistic... that implenting the 100 Mile Diet concept is not a "solution" to our environmental situation the way it is sometimes made out to be.
At the same time, though, I would suggest that the 100 Mile Diet concept - just as your own analysis of food production and transportation systems - can be part of helping to poke and prod us into the kind of significant and broad-based cultural transformation that I believe is necessary if we are to learn to live sustainably on this earth.
Thank you for your interesting prospective Richard. I would like to add that while foreign food sources might use less energy intensive processes and transportation methods, they might not have the same pollution control that our local producers have. For instance there is an article in The Star today about the concerns over emissions from cargo ships which use Bunker C fuel containing very high levels of sulphur. See http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/274399. Articles like this make me want to buy local but your write up makes me realize it is just a part of the big picture.
This is a great discussion, and if nothing else, the 100 Mile Diet book has prompted some very thought provoking questions, many of which have been raised by Bryan.
I agree that relationships are crucial - we are urged to be more aware of the relationships we have to the land and to the people who grow the food for us, whether this is 10 miles away or 10,000 miles away. (By the way, if the authors of this book are Canadian, why is it not a 100 KM diet?) Meeting the farmer who grows local apples might help us to become more aware of the farmer who grows the oranges from South Africa, and our desire that they be treated as fairly as the farmer from Niagara.
I also think that we need to be aware of other consumer habits of ours - lots of people have now tried the 100 mile diet, is anyone willing to attempt living with a 100 Mile Wardrobe? How about a 100 Mile House? A 100 Mile Electronics System? These are products that we use everyday of our lives and have an impact local and far away economies.
There are good issues raised by the 100 Mile diet concept and I think it comes down to this - being aware of the impact of our lifestyles and the repercussions that our choices have both locally and around the globe.
posted by Joyce R. Turman
Richard, et al. As someone who has had a deep interest in food justice for decades ("More with Less" and "Diet for a Small Planet" were my bible cookbooks as a young adult), and as someone who splits his time between MCC and a small business retailing local food, I greatly appreciate your thoughtful analysis along with Henry's, Bryan's and Joyce's responses.
One small note: your calculations re fresh produce transportation assume that the total weight transported is consumed. My understanding is that there is a significant amount of loss in transporting long distances. If correct, would this change your figures substantially? And what is your experience with long distant shipping?... One farm gate retailer buying at the Elmira Produce Auction Coop told me he figures on 25% loss in what he buys locally to take 15 kms away. At our store, I think we do much better than that - less than 5%.
Let's continue the dialogue. I've forwarded the link to this blog to the MCC Ontario Food and Faith working group.
Instead of trying to eat within a 100 mile radius, maybe we should challenge ourselves to limit our daily commute to within a 100 kms. Just thinking out loud.
Interesting discussion indeed. I appreciate all viewpoints on this matter.
Regarding Tim’s questions, my experience is that there is very little loss from transportation of fresh vegetables long distances. Losses do occur at the retail level and at homes, but from farm gate to the retailer they are almost insignificant in my experience. However, you do make a good point here because canning and freezing foods should reduce the amount of food thrown out because it spoils at the retailer or in homes before it is consumed. As the retailer you quote says, these losses can be significant. I don’t doubt his 25% figure at all for locally produced foods.
I will add a few other comments. To begin, I will add an important principal. The Tinbergen rule is a principle advanced by the Nobel Laureate Jan Tinbergen that optimal policy requires one policy instrument for each objective. When I read the various comments to my article, I am reminded of this rule. As Bryan has pointed out, there are many reasons people choose to adopt the 100 mile diet and that people are trying to address many policy objectives from this simple rule. This runs counter to the logic of Tinbergen. I think we all can agree that the most common rationale articulated for adopting a 100 mile buying policy is to counteract environmental degradation. I simply have written a rebuttal to the argument and have concluded that in fact, it would seem adopting a strict 100 mile buying policy would have a minimal effect on this objective.
To continue the logic of Tinbergen, all of the other policy objectives listed by previous writers should be addressed case by case. For example, it may be more effective to address the sulphur content of tanker oil directly through international agreements that phase out its use. Regarding the valid concerns expressed by Bryan, it may be more effective to address the concerns of multi-national corporations misusing there negotiating power by looking for alternative supply lines for similar goods coming from these economies. The 100 mile rule is a de facto boycott of all goods coming from these economies. Clearly, this is not an optimal policy solution for addressing this concern.
I will leave it at that, but add that I have a general concern about developed world initiated boycotts on less developed world products. This is a sensitive issue in Kenya because there is a movement underway in Europe advocating a boycott of Kenyan vegetables because of the food miles logic. This has caused some alarm in Kenya because of the importance to the Kenyan economy of vegetable exports and the significant employment it provides. Have the initiators of the boycott done a proper analysis? Have they consulted with Kenyan farmers and Kenyan workers, explaining the rationale? Have these parties agreed that a boycott is in the best interest of all parties and the environment? These are the types of questions I would want answered before joining a boycott of this nature.
Richard
May I join the discussion?
I think Richard is right on in reminding us these things are never simple. There are things to weigh and balance in all decisions so let's remember to keep doing that. I have many reasons for eating locally, certainly environmental is one of them so I'll stick with that argument.
I would like to comment on his calculations between locally preserved food and long distance food. I don't think we can just calculate the emissions produced in shipping the food to get its environmental cost. In order for us to purchase food from other countries we need trade laws - complicated and confusing trade laws. Keep in mind these are largely negotiated by flying many diplomats around the world to sit in high-rise office buildings. Should we not also include this energy consumption when calculating the environmental cost of shipping food long distances? Would this tip the scale towards local food? Certainly there are subsidiary environmetal costs to buying food at the market but they seem to me to be much less than international laws.
Overall I eat locally because it is a simpler process that I have much more control over. I have very little say in international policies (though I try to be informed) so keeping my life as local as possible helps me live by the values I hold. Of course, growing my own food would give me the greatest decision-making power on the environmental costs to sustain myself. Perhaps I'll do some reading on urban gardening...
By the way, I was told about this discussion board from various people who know my interest in creation care issues (I'm MCC Ontario's Creation Care Program Coordinator) and am quite happy to see you discussing these issues. Food conversations seem to be the most common entry point into environmental discussions for Mennonite churches - our cultural connection to food lives on even as we've largely moved off the farms.
i wish transport canada wans't planning on building the Pickering airport.
That might put a stop on the sustainable living and a go on the co2 emmisions in the York region area.
this airport must surely be the major issue concerning environment and our healthy local living.
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