Climate change and poverty
The Rights and Wrongs of Food Miles
4 December 2007
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Duncan Green, Head of Research, Oxfam |
In October, the Soil Association responded to concerns about food miles by saying it would only certify airfreighted products as organic if they also carried the fairtrade mark. Good for fairtrade, which we should all support, but wrong in terms of development, both on the grounds of equity and proportionality.
First equity: African farmers are amongst those least responsible for climate change, and yet they are being hit first and hardest by its effects - where's the justice in making them pay first to correct the results of our own carbon profligacy?
Second proportionality: While we acknowledge the impact that a growth in airfreight will have on carbon emissions, it's important to keep things in perspective. If everyone in the UK switched one 100W light bulb to a low energy equivalent it would, over a year, reduce CO2 emissions by five times the amount that would result from not purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables from sub-Saharan Africa. We should (literally) put our own house in order before boycotting African produce in the name of climate change.
Duncan Green, Oxfam's Head of Research
Comments
Jeremy Harrison | July 2, 2008 10:47 AM
The concept of "food miles" is fundamentally flawed because it does not take into account the relative carbon efficiency of the various modes of transportation. Almost all of our imported food (indeed 92% of all our trade) comes by sea not air and a ship is about 100 times as carbon efficient per tonne mile as a plane. A very few lightweight and high value items are flown in from areas that are distant from the sea (some supermarkets now label foods that have been flown in - have a look at how few are!).
I remember in November 2006 the Times ran a story claiming that "Christmas lunch will fly 84,000 miles to your table" where the carbon cost of flying the wide range of ingredients for a good celebration had been laboriously calculated. The only problem was that almost nothing on their list is ever flown in � I checked!
The low carbon footprint of shipping can often mean that food produced overseas - particularly where the agriculture is low carbon - is responsible for less carbon release than the same foods produced in the UK.
And we couldn't feed the UK population without importing food anyway! There are too many of us and too little agricultural land!
Simon Youell | March 5, 2008 1:56 PM
I am delighted and gratified that someone is at last standing up to the 'food mile fascists'. I believe in supporting third world countries to trade their way out of poverty and I happily buy food from them - fairtrade when available.
I deplore the hypocrisy of bodies such as the Soil Association. When their carbon footprint is as low as the African and other third world farmers who produce these goods, it will be time for them to speak - but for now they should shut up.