The drought the past few summers and the dramatic storms this winter remind us of how the impacts of climate change touch everyone. This is especially true for folks growing food across the world, as some areas face desertification while others face massive flooding, and everything in between.
Surviving and thriving as a species means that the choices everyone makes — from governments to everyday people — will impact how well we navigate this challenge. An immediate piece of the puzzle we can all tackle pertains to travel and shipping. Staying home this winter and making your own delicious meals with local ingredients is an active way to curb waste, reduce emissions and cultivate resilient local foods systems.
A somewhat-hidden carbon footprint in the mainstream food system is called “food miles.” To the great majority, the miles from the grocery store to your home is the tiniest step in that process. But before foods reach the grocery store, they are packed in a field, taken to a distributor, shipped to a warehouse (or a series of them), often sent to a processor, then another distributor with more warehouses, then finally to the store. Every step in the journey involves more storage, more trucking, more miles and pieces in the process.
On our farm, it could be called “food yards” instead of food miles because very little has to travel far from field to kitchen to plate, but this is an exceptional situation. Tropical fruits, out-of-season vegetables or meats might be shipped in from Chile, New Zealand or China. Sometimes, local growers find that their market is in a distant city rather than in their hometown. At other times, companies find that fewer regulations make it more economical to fly American-grown apples to South Africa to be waxed and then fly them back to be sold at American supermarkets. Economics drives these decisions — cheaper labor, subsidized fossil fuels and even subsidized agricultural practices swaying decisions.
A study published through www.postcarbon.org cites statistics illustrating that 15% of U.S. energy is spent on feeding Americans, which includes growing, shipping, displaying and preparing. Pair this with the fact that nearly 50% of all the food that is grown in this country is wasted, and the environmental impact is quite disconcerting. Most of the wasted food comes from the methods of mass production. Not everything matured in the field at the same time, so part of the crop was lost during mechanized harvesting. Not all the tomatoes or apples were the same size, so they did not crate up evenly and were discarded. Produce rotted during shipment or in a warehouse. Half of the lettuce had to be thrown away by the restaurant because it was too old or unfit to serve. I know because I have received those frantic calls from chefs when the box of green beans from their commercial purveyor arrives white and fuzzy.
Processed foods or foods with a high fat or high sugar content are the greatest offenders in the food mile problem. A study in Sweden quoted on www.thedailygreen.org traced the components of a traditional Swedish breakfast — apple, bread, butter, cheese, coffee, cream, orange juice and sugar. When combining all the miles traveled by each breakfast component, it was startling for the researchers to discover that this breakfast had trekked 24,901 miles, approximately the circumference of the earth!
In America, the traditional quote for food miles (be it for a steak, a tomato or a cake) is 1,500 miles. This is in accordance with a study conducted in Chicago. More recently, the study was similarly repeated and found that the number had jumped to 2,500 miles. This figure is for an individual product, not even a whole meal! The trip from the grocery store to your home is but one small piece of your food’s story. Find yourself a local farmer and cut out most of those miles — the farmer and the environment will thank you!
As I make the short, snowy hike to our farm’s aquaponics greenhouse today to harvest lettuce, kale, peppers and fresh herbs, I’m grateful to be able to grow these fresh foods right here on our farm for our family and members in our CSA-style program. These families picking up their shares this week have the satisfaction that their food-sourcing choices have a direct impact on keeping more sustainable, local choices viable and available.
Even though no one’s food mile choices are perfect, we can each choose to make a difference by eating foods close to home. As we all learn more about our environmental impact and make changes in our daily habits toward smaller carbon footprints, together we can begin meaningful change on a greater scale. Vote with your fork. Vote local. See you down on the farm sometime.
Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery. www.northstarhomestead.com
