The environmental cost of the food we eat.
Liz | 12.01.2006 22:48 | Analysis | Ecology
“Warning eating this food can seriously damage the planet”
An environmental health warning on food? Why not? Alcohol does so, does tobacco so why not food that has travelled miles by HGV vehicles or air freight.
An environmental health warning on food? Why not? Alcohol does so, does tobacco so why not food that has travelled miles by HGV vehicles or air freight.
Would you like to know the environmental damage caused by the production and manufacture food of the food you buy? Leave aside global and social responsibility considerations, that's a whole other issue. Why not have a points system for food miles and the environmental impact of the food in the shops?
Food transport has a significant and growing impact on road congestion, road accidents, climate change, noise and air pollution according to a new report published by the Government Dept Defra. Get away! Tell us something we didn't know why don't you! The environmental and social costs of the impacts are estimated at £9 billion per year with more than half due to road congestion. Consumers travel an average of 898 miles a year by car to shop for food and the quantity of food transported by heavy goods vehicles has doubled since 1974. Food transport now accounts for 25% of all HGV vehicle kilometres in the UK.
Copies of the report are available at :
http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/reports/foodmiles/default.asp
Headline findings in the report include; the environmental, social and economic costs of food transport are estimated at £9bn per year of which £5bn is due to road congestion, £2bn is due to road accidents, £1bn is due to pollution and £1bn to other factors. Looked at another way food shopping by car accounts for 40 per cent of the total costs.
Food transport produced 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2002 of which 10 million tonnes were emitted in the UK, representing 1.8 per cent of the total annual UK CO2 emissions.
Whilst a great deal in the report is green wash (not least because it does not not properly take into account the impact of air freighted food) it does contain some interesting information which will no doubt be ignored in the face of the lobbying power of the road hauliers industry and the supermarkets. Transport of food by air had the highest CO2 emissions per tonne, and is the fastest growing mode. Although air freight of food accounts for only 1 percent of food tonne kilometres and 0.1 percent of vehicle kilometres, it produces 11 percent of the food transport CO2 equivalent emissions.
Food travels further these days partly because the centralised systems of supermarkets have taken over from local and regional markets. It defies common sense, but a pint of milk or a crop of potatoes can be transported many miles to be packaged at a central depot and then sent many miles back to be sold a few miles from where they were produced in the first place.
Also, because of the way the food processing industry works, ingredients travel around the country from factory to factory, before they make their way to the shops.
Then there is imported produce. Ninety-five per cent of the fruit and half of the vegetables in the UK are imported. The amount of food being flown into the UK doubled in the 1990s and rises further each year. To take one example, strawberries are flown in from warmer climates to satisfy our desire for permanent dietary summertime, and air freight has a far bigger impact on the environment than sea or road travel has.
Another reason for mounting food miles is comparative labour costs. For example, some British fish is now sent to China (where labour costs are much lower) for processing, then sent back to the UK to be sold.
Consumers are also directly responsible for increased food miles. We now travel further for our shopping and use the car more often to do it. Each year, the average UK adult travels about 898 miles by car to shop for food, more often than not making trips to large, out-of-town supermarkets.
A foods country of origin may be on the label but, beyond this, its generally impossible to tell how far the food has travelled and by what means. The means of transport - as well as the distance - is an important consideration. A long journey by boat, for example, has less environmental impact than a shorter one by road. This is part of the reason why good farmers markets have a policy of selling food from within a defined local area.
The transport of live animals is an important animal welfare issue. The numbers of animals being hauled around the country have grown with the trend for large, centralised abattoirs and meat-processing plants. Animals are also exported and imported to and from other countries.
The concept of food miles also includes waste, which must be transported from your home to a landfill site. The average household throws away more than three kilograms of food and 14 kilograms of food packaging per week. Buying food with as little packaging as possible and composting waste can also make a difference.
Another way to make a difference is to buy British produce in its season. Buying seasonally helps negate the need for artificial heating in glasshouses.
Buying organic food can also help. The Soil Association points out that organic farming cuts down on the fossil fuels used to manufacture and transport the chemicals used in mainstream agriculture. This is an aspect of the environmental cost of food that he thinks is too often ignored. It is important to buy locally grown organic food rather than imported, though. To give an idea of how far food travels, a typical basket of 26 imported organic foods may have travelled the distance of six times around the equator.
Food transported across the world burns up a lot of fossil fuel and contributes to global warming. Food miles - the total distance in miles the food item is transported from field to plate - has become accepted as a convenient indicator of sustainability; and has led to a general movement towards local production and local consumption in order to minimize them. This raises fundamental questions about the sustainability of the globalised food trade and the increasing concentration of the food supply chain and distribution in the hands of fewer and fewer transnational corporations.
Research published last year by the University of Essex and City University revealed that buying locally produced food would save the UK £2.1 billion in environmental and congestion costs. The report's authors, Professor Jules Pretty and Professor Tim Lang, have called for supermarkets to put food miles on product labels, so customers can make informed choices. The authors of the research calculated that if all foods were sourced from within 20km of where they were consumed, environmental and congestion costs would fall from more than £2.3bn to under £230m - an "environmental saving" of £2.1bn annually. They pointed out that organic methods can also make an important contribution. If all farms in the UK were to turn organic, then the country would save £1.1bn of environmental costs each year. Consumers can save a further £100m in environmental costs, if they cycle, walk or catch the bus to the shops rather than drive.
Food for thought?
Food transport has a significant and growing impact on road congestion, road accidents, climate change, noise and air pollution according to a new report published by the Government Dept Defra. Get away! Tell us something we didn't know why don't you! The environmental and social costs of the impacts are estimated at £9 billion per year with more than half due to road congestion. Consumers travel an average of 898 miles a year by car to shop for food and the quantity of food transported by heavy goods vehicles has doubled since 1974. Food transport now accounts for 25% of all HGV vehicle kilometres in the UK.
Copies of the report are available at :
http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/reports/foodmiles/default.asp Headline findings in the report include; the environmental, social and economic costs of food transport are estimated at £9bn per year of which £5bn is due to road congestion, £2bn is due to road accidents, £1bn is due to pollution and £1bn to other factors. Looked at another way food shopping by car accounts for 40 per cent of the total costs.
Food transport produced 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2002 of which 10 million tonnes were emitted in the UK, representing 1.8 per cent of the total annual UK CO2 emissions.
Whilst a great deal in the report is green wash (not least because it does not not properly take into account the impact of air freighted food) it does contain some interesting information which will no doubt be ignored in the face of the lobbying power of the road hauliers industry and the supermarkets. Transport of food by air had the highest CO2 emissions per tonne, and is the fastest growing mode. Although air freight of food accounts for only 1 percent of food tonne kilometres and 0.1 percent of vehicle kilometres, it produces 11 percent of the food transport CO2 equivalent emissions.
Food travels further these days partly because the centralised systems of supermarkets have taken over from local and regional markets. It defies common sense, but a pint of milk or a crop of potatoes can be transported many miles to be packaged at a central depot and then sent many miles back to be sold a few miles from where they were produced in the first place.
Also, because of the way the food processing industry works, ingredients travel around the country from factory to factory, before they make their way to the shops.
Then there is imported produce. Ninety-five per cent of the fruit and half of the vegetables in the UK are imported. The amount of food being flown into the UK doubled in the 1990s and rises further each year. To take one example, strawberries are flown in from warmer climates to satisfy our desire for permanent dietary summertime, and air freight has a far bigger impact on the environment than sea or road travel has.
Another reason for mounting food miles is comparative labour costs. For example, some British fish is now sent to China (where labour costs are much lower) for processing, then sent back to the UK to be sold.
Consumers are also directly responsible for increased food miles. We now travel further for our shopping and use the car more often to do it. Each year, the average UK adult travels about 898 miles by car to shop for food, more often than not making trips to large, out-of-town supermarkets.
A foods country of origin may be on the label but, beyond this, its generally impossible to tell how far the food has travelled and by what means. The means of transport - as well as the distance - is an important consideration. A long journey by boat, for example, has less environmental impact than a shorter one by road. This is part of the reason why good farmers markets have a policy of selling food from within a defined local area.
The transport of live animals is an important animal welfare issue. The numbers of animals being hauled around the country have grown with the trend for large, centralised abattoirs and meat-processing plants. Animals are also exported and imported to and from other countries.
The concept of food miles also includes waste, which must be transported from your home to a landfill site. The average household throws away more than three kilograms of food and 14 kilograms of food packaging per week. Buying food with as little packaging as possible and composting waste can also make a difference.
Another way to make a difference is to buy British produce in its season. Buying seasonally helps negate the need for artificial heating in glasshouses.
Buying organic food can also help. The Soil Association points out that organic farming cuts down on the fossil fuels used to manufacture and transport the chemicals used in mainstream agriculture. This is an aspect of the environmental cost of food that he thinks is too often ignored. It is important to buy locally grown organic food rather than imported, though. To give an idea of how far food travels, a typical basket of 26 imported organic foods may have travelled the distance of six times around the equator.
Food transported across the world burns up a lot of fossil fuel and contributes to global warming. Food miles - the total distance in miles the food item is transported from field to plate - has become accepted as a convenient indicator of sustainability; and has led to a general movement towards local production and local consumption in order to minimize them. This raises fundamental questions about the sustainability of the globalised food trade and the increasing concentration of the food supply chain and distribution in the hands of fewer and fewer transnational corporations.
Research published last year by the University of Essex and City University revealed that buying locally produced food would save the UK £2.1 billion in environmental and congestion costs. The report's authors, Professor Jules Pretty and Professor Tim Lang, have called for supermarkets to put food miles on product labels, so customers can make informed choices. The authors of the research calculated that if all foods were sourced from within 20km of where they were consumed, environmental and congestion costs would fall from more than £2.3bn to under £230m - an "environmental saving" of £2.1bn annually. They pointed out that organic methods can also make an important contribution. If all farms in the UK were to turn organic, then the country would save £1.1bn of environmental costs each year. Consumers can save a further £100m in environmental costs, if they cycle, walk or catch the bus to the shops rather than drive.
Food for thought?
Liz
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