To choose a locally grown apple over an apple trucked in from across the country might seem easy. But this decision ignores economies of scale. To take an extreme example, a shipper sending a truck with 2,000 apples over 2,000 miles would consume the same amount of fuel per apple as a local farmer who takes a pickup 50 miles to sell 50 apples at his stall at the green market. The critical measure here is not food miles but apples per gallon.At our house, we're seasonal locavores - especially during the late summer when the farmers' market is full of sweet corn and veggies. We do it not to save the planet, but to enjoy the unparalleled taste of sweet corn picked the same day as it is eaten (when it sits on a shelf in the store, the sugar turns to starch).
The Forbes article linked above addresses some of the complexity involved in deciding when and whether local food is more carbon-friendly than imported food. I would take issue with their apple-shipping example above, because the two trucks might not get the same mpg, but their point is that if all carbon balance is considered, there are situations when export/import is better for the planet than local production. I've seen the same argument apparently validated in terms of flowers - that's it's better for the planet to grow them in tropical areas and ship rather than in greenhouses in northern climes. Food quality and local economics are factors that aren't directly addressed in the Forbes article.
Apples per gallon is one thing, but if the idea is to "save the planet", then it's also important to take into account the ecological health of the places where those apples were grown, and thus the health we gain by eating them. Apples (and other produce) grown on smaller farms where farmers are able to look after the long-term health of their soil, for example, often grow apples with more soil-drawn nutrients in them. Similarly, when the farmer's insect pest population is kept at bay by a wisely managed micro-ecosystem, they can avoid using carcinogenic pesticides, which we then avoid consuming. Furthermore, those local apples (like your local sweet corn) are often bred for taste instead of packaging, and so they are tastier. And tastier apples means we will want to eat more of them, which means even more locally grown health benefits. Which adds up to fewer health problems and lower health bills. So there's the math factor again.
ReplyDeletePlus, those farmer's market apples probably are not subsidized by our tax dollars, unlike the artificially cheap semi-truck apples. So gas or no gas, those local apples are probably a better buy all around than the long-distance, mass-produced ones.
And I'm sure if we put our heads together, we could probably figure out a few ways to get those 50 local apples shipped more gas efficiently.
Using apples as your example prompts me to say that I love apples, and they do not grow locally. The only way we can have them is if they are "imported".
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