‘Flown in’, the woman said sparingly to the man who held out a bowl of blueberries to her. One word, but uttered with enough disapproval to make the man run off with his berries. He put the tray back and went back to the fruit aisle to look for the country of origin of the pears.
Many consumers are quite concerned about where their food comes from. And supermarkets apparently too. At an organic store, there was a sign on the sidewalk that said their avocados came by boat. Lidl announced in November that it would be the first supermarket to stop flying fruit and vegetables in order to reduce CO2reduce transport emissions.
Flying, that is clear, is by far the most polluting form of transport. The CO2emissions per kilo of food are about fifty times higher than when transported by ship. So better to stop flying in green beans, sugar snaps and blueberries.
Transport is also part of the scientific debate about the impact of our food. As you read, you come across staggering numbers. Since 1995, the global food trade more than doubled. Imported food accounts for an average of one-fifth of calories consumed. And as is often the case: the rich have a larger footprint than the poor. The 12.5 percent of the world’s population living in rich countries is responsible for 46 percent of emissions from food transport.
Food kilometers account for nearly 20 percent of all emissions in the food chain worldwide researchers last June via Natural Food out on the basis of new calculations. And that is 3.5 to 7.5 times more than previously assumed. For fruit and vegetables, transport is even responsible for more than a third of the total emissions – assuming that fruit and vegetables are transported refrigerated.
The article contains world maps with a tangle of food movements. You would feel short of breath just from the miles traveled to get China to eat meat. Conclusion of the researchers: in a world of abundance we should produce more locally and vegetable. The key lies in consumer buying behaviour.
The results did not go unnoticed. “The new study shatters the previous widely held assumption that emissions from food transportation dwarf the damage from food production itself,” wrote Fidelity for example.
Criticism came immediately. Because what are we actually talking about when it comes to food miles?
The Australian and Chinese researchers wanted to make a distinction between food transport and food miles. They didn’t just look at the transport from producer to consumer – the usual way of calculating. They also included the kilometers it takes to produce food at all, from the beginning of the chain. Fuel, fodder, seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and machines also go around the world. So many kilometers have already been covered before food leaves the farm, which also entails emissions. All these elements in the supply chain together account for more than half of the total food kilometers.
Local fertilizer
But what should you do with that sum? If you bring food production closer to home, you don’t necessarily lose the kilometers around it. Just look at the Brazilian soy that is needed to produce meat and dairy in the Netherlands, or at the raw materials for fertilizer that are shipped all over the world. You can eat super local sauerkraut with sausage and still have thousands of food miles on your plate. Local food is not the solution.
The cynical consequence of this inclusive food mileage, say some critics, is that it is best to produce food in countries where pesticides and fertilizers come from, so that they do not have to travel. Or that each country will produce its own pesticides and fertilizers: that produces more CO2profit than just keeping the food in place.
There is a lot that is not mentioned on the packaging in the supermarket
If you only look at the transport between producer and consumer, you get a completely different picture. Then fogs up emissions from transportation about 5 percent of the total. Also good to know: domestic transport leads to much more emissions than international food flows. Not only because trucks emit more per kilo of food than ships. Also because almost all world trade goes by sea and almost everything locally and regionally by road.
If you keep food transport separate from the rest, you see that other things are usually much more important than transport. Think of land use (deforestation), waste and how polluting or efficient the farmer is. What you eat is often more important than where it comes from. At the risk of becoming a cliché: you can better banana from Panama then eat steak from a local farmer, if you care about CO2emissions to do.
Price
When push comes to shove, the differences of opinion may not be that great. In any case, the Australian and Chinese researchers made an attempt to show that the existing definition of food miles takes too little account of the consequences of a highly globalized food system. In response to the criticism they also pointed out why it can be really useful to include all external food kilometers. Because isn’t it strange that everything needed to produce food is included in the retail price, but not in the emission figures? A broader definition of food miles can be a start if you consider CO2 would like to charge.
Consumers, meanwhile, are hardly any wiser. They obediently look for the country of origin on the packaging in the supermarket, but then they don’t know anything yet. Not how it was transported, whether it was cooled en route and certainly not what else is needed for a bowl of pears or a box of blueberries. Most of it is not mentioned on the packaging.
A little more about flying. Lidl makes a good impression by stopping flying in fruit and vegetables, but does not want to say which part of their range comes by air. Less than 10 percent, they say. It’s probably more like 1 percent. At least it is at Albert Heijn. By far the most comes by road, half from the Netherlands. And that organic store with its unflown avocados? Nothing special. Most avocados already come by boat to the Netherlands.
It is fine to address consumers about their behaviour, but then they need to know what to look out for. The supermarket does not always help with that.