Do Food Miles Matter?

VincentD — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:13:00 GMT

Do food miles matter? Well, if you are concerned about the impact on greenhouse gases, then maybe not. A recent paper from Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews in the journal, Environmental Science and Technology ( Environ. Sci. Technol. 2008. 42...(read more)

New Challenges for Food Animal Agriculture

VincentD — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:45:00 GMT

I’m an animal scientist and an omnivore, although vegetarians might consider me a carnivore, since I eat meat. In truth, I am an omnivore as I eat almost all types of foods. But most of the protein I consume comes from meat. There are growing concerns...(read more)

Buying Local...

VincentD — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:24:00 GMT

On August 6, the New York Times featured an op-ed piece, "Food That Travels Well" from James McWilliams, the author of the 2005 book, "A Revolution in Eating." McWilliams makes many good reasons for eating local:

"...freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space -- but none of these benefits compareas to the much touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment."

Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture has done extensive research on the impact of food miles on Iowa consumers. Our location in the middle of the Pacific automatically adds a greater "carbon footprint" to our imported food supply. All the more reason to buy local. Bon Appetit Management Company, which supplies cafe and catering services to corporations, colleges and universities, encourages the chefs to think about how there food choices can help ease climate change. Such as:

Reduce the use of beef by 25% - Livestock production is resopnsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Sourcing all meat and poultry from North America - 80% of the energy used by the food system comes not from growing the food, but by transporting and processing it.
Sourcing nearly all fruits and vegetables from North America, using seasonal local produce as a first preference and using tropical fruits only as "special" occasion ingredients -- Most bananas have traveled 3,000 miles in high-speed refrigerated ships to reach an American breakfast plate. A local apple might be grown within 10 miles.
Serving only domestic bottled water and reducing waste from plastic bottles -- Americans throw away 40 million plast water bottles every day
Reducing food waste -- Goal of 25% reduction in three years or less.
Auditing the energy efficiency of kitchen equipment - In home or commercial kitchen energy losses of up to 30% can be easily corrected for very low cost.

While the context of their suggestions are based upon the mainland, we face these impacts and more. Consider beef consumption in Hawaii -- only 5% of the beef consumed in Hawaii is locally finished. When the last of the feedlots closed in Hawaii, Hawaii rancher's were forced by economic necessity to find other options to market their cattle. What evolved is the current situation of shipping calves to the mainland, following by finishing and processing in mainland feedlots and slaughterhouses and the beef coming back to Hawaii, as commodity beef in boxes. That's potentially two trips back and forth to the mainland. Imagine the "carbon footprint" and the food miles that are involved. Will that stop me from eating beef, not likely but I am certainly more inclined to support locally produced grass-fed beef (and which some would argue is healthier). Unfortunately, except for North Shore Beef, there is little local beef available on Oahu. The markets on the neighbor islands have more of the local product. But until more local beef is produced, eating beef will exact a greater carbon footprint than many other products. But then again, don't get me started on poultry...

Sustainable Agriculture : carbon footprint

Do Food Miles Matter?

New Challenges for Food Animal Agriculture

Buying Local...