On the subject of Food Miles...

‘Food Miles’ versus the ‘Place-based Food System’
From the desk of Jac Smit:

“Transporting food and agriculture inputs by plane, train, truck and ship is a driving force towards global warming and climate change. Air shipping consumes ten to twenty times as many petroleum calories as the food calories it puts on the retailers shelf. Moving food by truck [the most common] utilizes five to ten times as much as shipping by train and train miles consume two to four times as much energy per mile as sea transport [consider refridgerated].

Overall, as a generalization, global agri-business consumes over ten calories of petroleum and coal energy to deliver a calorie of food to your dinner plate. This is the global warming cost of so-called “food miles”. These food miles impact some climate zones more intensely than others.

As with de-forestation, the post WW II lower density of more rapid urbanization is considerably expanding food miles and its negative impact on the environment in which we live.

A viable and fairly common definition of urban agriculture is that which is within “same day delivery”. Same day delivery can put a calorie of food on the retail shelf for between one and four calories of transportation calories.

A simplification of the ‘Place-based’ food system ‘Farm to Market’ can be stated as:

1. Harvest [or slaughter]
2. Chill [or process]
3. Load truck [or train]
4. Deliver

All four within 24 hours. This process is a four to five times reduction, from the global agri-business industry, in terms of global warming and climate change.”

A study conducted in the UK published in Food Policy estimates that if all of the UK’s food were to be sourced within 12 miles of homes or other places of consumption, the avoided environmental/associated costs would amount to £2.1 Billion

Source:
Pretty J., Ball A., Lang T., Morison J., 2005: Farm Costs and Food miles: An Assessment of the Full Cost of the UK
Weekly Food Basket. Food Policy, Volume 30, Issue 1, February 2005, Pages 1-19