Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 9:50AM | in World Development Eating for the environment
Are locavores doing their math wrong? They say that it's better for the environment to eat locally, but Stephen Budiansky thinks otherwise:
It takes about a tablespoon of diesel fuel to move one pound of freight 3,000 miles by rail; that works out to about 100 calories of energy. If it goes by truck, it’s about 300 calories, still a negligible amount in the overall picture... Overall, transportation accounts for about 14 percent of the total energy consumed by the American food system.
Other favorite targets of sustainability advocates include the fertilizers and chemicals used in modern farming. But their share of the food system’s energy use is even lower, about 8 percent.
The real energy hog, it turns out, is not industrial agriculture at all, but you and me. Home preparation and storage account for 32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far.
So, what should we do?
The best way to make the most of these truly precious resources of land, favorable climates and human labor is to grow lettuce, oranges, wheat, peppers, bananas, whatever, in the places where they grow best and with the most efficient technologies.
I guess there are lots of good reasons for eating locally, as my brother is fond of telling me: the food tastes better, it's better for you, and you support local agriculture and small-scale farming. But if you're looking to reduce your environmental footprint, filling your freezer with 50-mile food may not be the best way to do it.
Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 9:50AM | in World Development 
Reader Comments (1)
Alas, like all environmental issues, there are no black and white solutions. Life cycle assessment is really esential for better informed solutions...e.g., an LCA study was done and found that when in England eating tomatoes from Spain was better than eating English greenhouse tomatoes based on energy use. And, inNorway eating lamb imported from New Zealand was better than eating local sheep. I suspect in many countries eating vegetarain is much better environmetnally than meat-eating - except perhaps in cold climates or where the land is better for grazing than growing....but that supposition would need the science behind it!