On top of today's $200 London departure tax, I ran across this "food-miles" article at Reason.com.
As long as the affable Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearney-Whittingstall direct the popular imagination of British eaters, our produce shipped across oceans will be threatened by politically popular, but punitive and illogical taxes.
In the article below I think it's significant that "New Zealand Apples" are deployed as a metaphor for gross wastage and perverse levels of greenhouse emissions.
In reality, a sparsely populated area, most emissions in the food supply-chain are derived from moving produce from ports to supermarkets and moving the consumers from their couches to the markets. Specifically, in the case of the UK, 82% of food miles are generated within the UK, and in both the UK and USA transportation of food to the national market accounted for only 1-2% of emissions.
4 November, 2008.
Reason.com.
The Food Miles Mistake
Saving the planet by eating New Zealand apples.
I stopped by my favorite boutique grocery store to pick up a red onion today. The young clerk running the cash register wore a t-shirt with the slogan "Eat Local." Oddly, the shop's shelves and coolers were stuffed with cheeses, sausages, olives, jams, cookies, and crackers from California, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and many other exotic locales...
the United Kingdom's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) which reported that 82 percent of food miles were generated within the U.K. Consumer shopping trips accounted for 48 percent and trucking for 31 percent of British food miles. Air freight amounted to less than 1 percent of food miles. In total, food transportation accounted for only 1.8 percent of Britain's carbon dioxide emissions.
In the United States, a 2007 analysis found that transporting food from producers to retailers accounted for only 4 percent of greenhouse emissions related to food. According to a 2000 study, agriculture was responsible for 7.7 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. In that study, food transport accounted for 14 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture, which means that food transport is responsible for about 1 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that food should be grown where it is most economically advantageous to do so.
/Moreover.../
For instance, rich country subsidies amounting to more than $300 billion per year are severely distorting global agricultural production and trade. If the subsidies were removed, far more agricultural goods would be produced in and imported from developing countries, helping lift millions of people out of poverty. They warn that the food miles campaign is "providing a new set of rhetorical tools to bolster protectionist interests that are fundamentally detrimental to most of humankind."
Full article here: Reason.com
As long as the affable Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearney-Whittingstall direct the popular imagination of British eaters, our produce shipped across oceans will be threatened by politically popular, but punitive and illogical taxes.
In the article below I think it's significant that "New Zealand Apples" are deployed as a metaphor for gross wastage and perverse levels of greenhouse emissions.
In reality, a sparsely populated area, most emissions in the food supply-chain are derived from moving produce from ports to supermarkets and moving the consumers from their couches to the markets. Specifically, in the case of the UK, 82% of food miles are generated within the UK, and in both the UK and USA transportation of food to the national market accounted for only 1-2% of emissions.
4 November, 2008.
Reason.com.
The Food Miles Mistake
Saving the planet by eating New Zealand apples.
I stopped by my favorite boutique grocery store to pick up a red onion today. The young clerk running the cash register wore a t-shirt with the slogan "Eat Local." Oddly, the shop's shelves and coolers were stuffed with cheeses, sausages, olives, jams, cookies, and crackers from California, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and many other exotic locales...
the United Kingdom's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) which reported that 82 percent of food miles were generated within the U.K. Consumer shopping trips accounted for 48 percent and trucking for 31 percent of British food miles. Air freight amounted to less than 1 percent of food miles. In total, food transportation accounted for only 1.8 percent of Britain's carbon dioxide emissions.
In the United States, a 2007 analysis found that transporting food from producers to retailers accounted for only 4 percent of greenhouse emissions related to food. According to a 2000 study, agriculture was responsible for 7.7 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. In that study, food transport accounted for 14 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture, which means that food transport is responsible for about 1 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that food should be grown where it is most economically advantageous to do so.
/Moreover.../
For instance, rich country subsidies amounting to more than $300 billion per year are severely distorting global agricultural production and trade. If the subsidies were removed, far more agricultural goods would be produced in and imported from developing countries, helping lift millions of people out of poverty. They warn that the food miles campaign is "providing a new set of rhetorical tools to bolster protectionist interests that are fundamentally detrimental to most of humankind."
Full article here: Reason.com
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