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  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The Role of Local Food Systems in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
  • Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 21:43:59 -0600



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Editor's Note: This study on food miles links transit, food and
environmental policy concerns. The author explores the concept and
methodology of "food miles" - or the distance food moves to get from point
of production to that of consumption and the environmental damage
implicated in this process. The study finds that food purchased at a major
supermarket where items are globally sourced travelled 81 times further
than identical items purchased at a local farmer's market. The cost of
transport in terms of greenhouse gas emissions is enormous and encouraging
local food systems could help ease climate change. But governments set
goals to capture shares of world agriculture and the reduction of emissions
related to international trade is not included as part of environmental
harm reduction targets. Incentives to reduce distance travelled by our food
need to be considered.



Please note data and graphs appearing in the original version of this paper
are not contained in the body of this message. Please click on the link
below to see the original report.



http://www.foodshare.net/resource/files/ACF230.pdf



Fighting Global Warming at the Farmer's Market

The Role of Local Food Systems in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By Stephen Bentley

Education and Research Office

238 Queen Street West

info@foodshare.net



A FoodShare Research in Action Report

January, 2004

Research in Action

FoodShare Field to Table



At FoodShare we work on food issues "from field to table" - meaning that we
focus on the entire system that puts food on our tables: from the growing,
processing and distribution of food to its purchasing, cooking and
consumption.



We operate several innovative grassroots projects that promote healthy
eating, teach food preparation and cultivation, develop community capacity
and create non-market-based forms of food distribution.



Public education on food security issues is a big part of our mandate: we
create and distribute resources, organize training workshops and facilitate
networks and coalitions.



We believe that food is vital to the health of individuals and communities,
and that access to good, healthy food is a basic human right. FoodShare
promotes policies - such as adequate social assistance rates, sustainable
agriculture, universal funding of community-based programs and nutrition
education - that will make food a priority at all levels of society.



This report was made possible through a grant from the Toronto Atmospheric
Fund



The concept of "food miles" --the distance our food travels from point of
production to point of consumption and the environmental impact of getting
it there--is an important quantitative analysis tool for food security. As
we move onward in the 21st century, working toward food security requires
not only addressing access to healthy food by people of diverse income
levels, but ensuring that food production and distribution occur in an
environmentally sustainable and economically viable manner.



The continued use of massive quantities of petroleum, both in the
production of synthetic fertilizers and machinery used in food production
and in transporting our food across the globe, is clearly unsustainable.
Not only is oil a finite natural resource, but greenhouse gas emissions
from a petroleum-based food economy contribute to air pollution, related
health problems, and global warming. This report examines the production of
greenhouse gases through globalized food transport and suggests that all
levels of Canadian government should take a more active role in supporting
more sustainable food economies.



There are significant ecological barriers to Canada becoming completely
self-sufficient in food production. However, a visit to a Toronto farmer's
market at the end of November of 2003 revealed that even this late in the
season, a diversity of fresh, locally grown food items were still
available. We compared transport distances, energy consumption, and carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions from seven locally produced items and equivalent
imported items. Our findings were quite shocking: carrots from California,
for example, traveled 59 times further than carrots sourced from a farm
near Hamilton. While a half a kilogram of local lamb generated seven grams
of carbon dioxide through transportation, the same quantity of fresh New
Zealand lamb yielded over eight kilograms!



This report discusses the methodologies of calculating food miles, the
findings of our study, and the study's limitations and implications. First,
however, we examine the issue of food transportation within the broader
context of global warming and Canada's strategy for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.



Canada in the Context of Global Warming



Global warming is upon us. The so-called greenhouse gases (GHG) which are
in small quantities naturally occurring and necessary for life on earth
have risen dramatically in recent years, causing the temperature of the
earth's atmosphere to rise. Research shows that carbon dioxide (CO2)
concentrations that had remained stable for 10 000 years have risen by 30%
since the industrial Revolution.(1) As a result, scientists project that
the global average temperature will rise an estimated 1.4 to 5.8 degrees
Celsius by the year 2100, according to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. (2)



In northern environments, the effects of climate change are expected to be
more pronounced than this global average. Canada has already experienced
some of the effects of global warming: declining water levels in the Great
Lakes and an increase in extreme weather such as droughts, ice storms, and
heat waves, for example.(3) Such volatile weather patterns impact heavily
on farmers who rely on good weather to produce the food we eat. Moreover,
we are all affected by the smog that results from GHG emissions and
associated health problems. Farmers in southern Ontario experience $70
million in crop damage each year due to smog, (4) while an estimated 16,000
Canadians die prematurely each year due to air pollution.(5)



Serious commitment and cooperation are needed at the global, national,
regional and local level. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol commits participating
industrialized nations, including Canada, to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions to at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The Canadian
government's Action Plan 2000 on Climate Change states the federal
government's intention to invest $1.1 billion over the next five years on
initiatives aimed at reducing GHG emissions. The 2002 Climate Change Plan
for Canada: Achieving our Commitments Together builds on the Action Plan by
establishing a "made in Canada" approach to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions by 240 megatonnes. (6)



Canada's Climate Change Plan seems, on cursory review, to be a
comprehensive document. Its instruments for making Canadians "the most
efficient consumers and producers of energy in the world include building
partnerships between different levels of government, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), and the private sector; making strategic investments;
and using "targeted measures" like information, incentives, regulations and
tax measures. The Plan's seven "action areas" include transportation;
housing and commercial/institutional buildings; large industrial emitters;
agriculture and forestry; renewable energy; and the international market.



A closer look at Canada's anti-global warming strategy suggests that
Canadian resources might be spent more effectively if we are to make a real
difference in reducing GHG emissions. While one might expect our strategy
to focus on curtailing our own emissions, the largest share of Canada's
greenhouse gas emission reductions (twenty-five percent) come not from
undertakings within our borders, but rather at the international level.(7)



One way that reduction commitments are to be achieved is through the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. Under this mechanism,
emissions credits are obtained through public or private foreign investment
in renewable sources of energy. While companies must demonstrate that their
foreign investments reduce emissions below a "business as usual" baseline,
critics have expressed concern over the fact that these investments may
nevertheless be made in unsustainable projects such as large-scale
hydro-electric dams.(8)



While foreign investments in sustainable technologies are becoming
increasingly important in the struggle to combat global warming, there is
much that can be done to this effect within our own borders. Transportation
accounts for one quarter of Canada's energy consumption (9) and produces
one quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other sector of
the economy. Without further action, transportation emissions could rise to
206 MT, 32 percent above 1990 levels, by 2010. (10)



Just under a quarter of transportation emissions in Canada result from
trucking, with

about a third resulting from air, marine, rail and truck transport
combined. Freight activity is projected to increase 60 percent by 2020,(11)
and trends suggest that the increase may not occur by the most sustainable
means. While energy consumption was on the rise in the air and ground
transport sectors between 1991 and 1996, fuel consumption from the less
polluting transportation modes, water and rail, actually decreased during
this period.(12)



Despite the prominent role that transportation plays in contributing to
greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, Action Plan 2000 states that only ten
percent of our emissions are to come from reforms in the transport sector.
The 9 MT of transport-related emission reductions that resulted from the
first phase of Canada's climate change strategy do not even constitute a
third of what Canada claimed in greenhouse gas deductions through carbon
sinks in the agriculture and forestry sector. The latter 30 MT claim,
moreover, was made under the premise of "business as usual," that is, made
without any change in pre-Kyoto government policy.(13)



Of course, reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires more than simply
privileging local solutions over global ones, since the problem itself is
of international nature. In

Stopping the great food swap: Relocalizing Europe's food supply, Dr.
Caroline Lucas makes the point that traditional measures of national energy
consumption do not consider the environmental costs of the production and
transportation of goods to the importing country. Because
"transport-related carbon dioxide emissions associated with international
trade by sea and air are not included in national inventories and targets,"
Lucas reminds us, "(t)here is no incentive to reduce emissions from
international transportation."(14)



Given the paucity of international data on GHG emissions from the
transportation sector, national figures can be an important starting point.
Unfortunately, information on the percentage of domestic Canadian
transportation devoted to food and agriculture is currently unavailable. If
statistics from Europe are any indicator, though, food transport is a
significant environmental problem. From one third to 40 percent of all road
freight in Britain moves food.(15) Air freight, the most polluting form of
transportation, grew by seven percent a year during the 1990s in England
and is expected to rise 7.5 percent each year through 2010.(16) By weight,
fruit and vegetables form the largest category (13 percent) of goods
imported by air into the UK. In the absence of data on food transport in
Canada, the use of Food Miles as a tool of analysis is helpful in
understanding the relationship between global warming and a global food
economy.



Food Miles Methodology



There are multiple methodologies for measuring food miles. Perhaps the most
comprehensive one was that pioneered by Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, the
Weighted Average Source Distance (WASD). The U.S.-based Leopold Centre for
Sustainable Agriculture used this methodology in its 2003 report "Checking
the food odometer: Comparing food miles for local versus conventional
produce sales to Iowa Institutions." The WASD calculates a single distance
value that incorporates information on the weight of the food item and the
distances between point of production and point of sale, based on the
formula,



WASD = Sum of (m(k) x d(k))

Sum of m(k)

Where:

k=different points of production

m=amount (weight) from each point of production,

and

d= distance from each point of production to each point of use or sale



The WASD is a useful indicator for the distances that our food travels
because it incorporates data on all possible sources from which a given
agricultural commodity may be produced. For its study, the Leopold Center
used information from sales transactions for its locally produced sample.
For its conventionally produced sample, the Center used the United States
Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service data on produce
arriving at the Chicago and St. Louis food terminals in the U.S. One-way
distances from point of production to point of consumption were calculated
using the internet site www.mapquest.com.



In the event that the data sufficient to calculate WASD are not readily
available, an alternative methodology may be used. While the method used in
this study does not produce an average distance, it is still a useful
alternative because it allows us to compare both the distance traveled by
particular food items and the environmental impact of their transportation.



For our study we selected and sourced seven food items on sale at the
Dufferin Grove

Farmer's Market in Toronto on November 20th and 27th, 2003. The points of
origin for these items were obtained by asking the farmers who sold them
where they were produced. The items were compared with equivalents on sale
at a nearby No Frills supermarket. Points of origin were obtained by
looking at labels on the various items. In a few cases, the labels did not
indicate point of origin but did provide website addresses which identified
origins.



The research and methodology used were based to a large extent on the work
on Ann- Marie Marano who conducted a study in 2003 that compared emissions
associated with the food used in FoodShare Field to Table's Good Food Box
and Organic Food Box. Not only were different emission types compared for
the different boxes, but also it was a seasonal study that illustrated the
changing food-sourcing patterns. Mapquest was used to calculate North
American distances. In cases where the location was too small to be listed
on Mapquest, the nearest major town was used as point of origin. For
imports sourced from overseas, "as the crow flies" distances were
ascertained using the website www.indo.com/distance/ which makes
calculations based on latitudinal and longitudinal

coordinates. Where only the state or country of origin was known, we used
cities located

close to the centre of the state or major port cities as reference points
in our calculations. A contact with the Ontario Food Terminal indicated
that most items from the United States or South America in fact pass though
Los Angeles, CA. This information was incorporated into distance
calculations. Distances in miles were converted into kilometres (1 mile =
1.609 km).



Consistent with the method used by the Leopold Center, we charted the
distances over which local food items were transported and compared these
with the distances that imports were shipped. We expressed this figure in
the form "number of times further that local items traveled than imported
items." In our study, food items were weighed, and the weights converted
into metric tonnes. Emissions and energy consumption were calculated using
the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel. Weight in tonnes of the sample
items were multiplied by distance traveled, providing the unit of
tonnekilometres

(T-Km). The T-km figure was then multiplied by the relevant energy/T-km or
emissions/

T-km factor, depending on means of transportation.(17)



While locally produced food items in the sample set traveled an average of
101 km, equivalent imported items moved an average of 5364 km. On the
whole, the imported items were transported 81 times further than the local
items. Fresh lamb chops imported from New Zealand traveled the farthest, an
estimated 193 times the distance of their local equivalents. It is worth
noting that pears and apples from Washington State-right across the
Canadian border-made a longer journey than carrots from California. Swiss
chard from Texas, which is significantly closer to Toronto than California
as the crow flies, also traveled further than the California carrots. Both
the pears and the carrots traveled to the Los Angeles food terminal before
being trucked up to Canada.



Obviously, carbon dioxide emissions resulting from imports were higher than
those associated with locally produced items. Our analysis demonstrated
that greenhouse gas emissions are not simply a factor of distance traveled,
but also of the means of transportation used. Lamb chops from New Zealand
may have traveled 193 times as far as their Canadian counterparts, but they
produced over one thousand times as much CO2 because they were flown in. As
mentioned in the introduction, transporting half a kilo of fresh NZ lamb to
Toronto by plane produces over eight kilograms of CO2, as compared with
seven grams of CO2 produced from trucking the meat in from Flamborough,
Ontario. Though pears imported from Portugal traveled 350 kilometres
further than pears transported from Washington through L.A., transporting
the European pears actually produced less carbon dioxide. The reason for
this is that we assumed that the pears from Portugal would have traveled
across the Atlantic by boat while the Washington pears made the entire
journey by truck, which is about seven times more polluting.(18)



Discussion



As discussed above, transportation by boat and rail is actually decreasing,
while the more polluting airfreight and trucking are on the rise. Only
focused political action will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that
result from the transportation of food. To its credit, the Canadian
government launched its Freight Efficiency and Technology Initiative in

November 2001. This project promotes greater efficiencies in transportation
through cooperation with the provinces, territories, and the private
sector. Canada's Climate Change Plan proposes that further change be made
through "intermodal freight movement" and further efficiency improvements.
Current and proposed initiatives to reduce emissions through the
development of alternative energy sources such as hydrogen fuel cells and
biofuels are likewise praiseworthy.



Pressure needs to be applied to governments to ensure that such mechanisms
are in fact implemented. The push towards more fuel efficient means of
transportation, however, should not distract us from thinking critically
about the overall efficiency of a food system that prioritizes long
distance trade over more sustainable local alternatives. Our food system is
generally considered efficient, even though the fossil fuel energy required
to ship a head of lettuce from Salinas Valley, California to Washington
D.C. is 36 times the food energy that the lettuce provides.(19)



Inefficiency aside, however, long-distance food trade is clearly on the
rise. Between 1968 and 1998, international trade in food increased by 184%,
while world food production increased 84%.(20) The majority of food trade,
however, occurs between countries of similar natural environments that
could be growing much of their own food instead of importing and exporting
it.(21) Several European studies on food miles have demonstrated that, in
many cases, food is merely "swapped," that is, a given country will both
export and import the same item.(22)



A similar situation may be occurring in Canada. Our contribution to
international agricultural trade is growing. Canada's agricultural exports
increased by 50 percent between 1990 and 2001, with imports increasing more
than 70 percent in the same period.(23) In 1998, Canadian Ministers of
Agriculture set the goal of capturing four percent of world trade in
agriculture by 2005.(24) While Ontario contributes a larger portion of
Canadian food exports than any other province, it is also a net food
importer.

In fact, Ontario accounted for 57.5 percent of Canadian agriculture imports
in

2002, wracking up an agricultural trade deficit of 3.7 billion Canadian
dollars.(25)



While Canada spends considerable sums on food imports, economic necessity
is forcing many Canadian agricultural producers to quit farming as a
full-time vocation. Between 1996 and 2001, the number of Canadian farms in
operation decreased by eleven percent.(26) Among those farmers who remain
in business, net farm income continues to fall as a percentage of total
income.(27) Thus, farmers are becoming increasingly dependent on work from
other industries to earn a livelihood. While opponents of the Kyoto
Protocol often argue that ratification will cost jobs, they often fail to
mention the jobs that will be created as we make the transition to a more
environmentally sustainable economy. We recommend that some of the $15.6
billion spent on food imports in 2001 be used to support sustainable
Canadian agriculture.



Eating more locally produced food will automatically reduce the greenhouse
gas emissions that result from food transportation. The issue of food and
the environment, however, is more complex than our food miles calculations
have suggested. When trying to determine the environmental impact of the
foods we eat, one must consider how they were produced, in addition to the
distances they traveled and the means by which they were transported. As
Tara Garnett, coordinator of Transport 2000's Wise Moves project in England
has pointed out, more energy may be consumed growing tomatoes in local
English hothouses then growing them in the sun in Spain and transporting
them to England.(28) In Canada, the environmental cost of flying an
estimated 18 000 Caribbean and Mexican migrant workers who do the majority
of tomato harvesting-in and out of the country each season should also be
factored into the equation.



One potential strategy for supporting a sustainable local food system is
the use of "ecolabels." Researchers from the Leopold Center for Sustainable
Agriculture have proposed the use of food labels that include information
on both food miles and C02 emissions to inform consumers about the
environmental impact of imported foods. By incorporating Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA), "a method for performing an integral analysis of
environmental impacts in a 'cradle to grave fashion,'"(29) eco-labels could
include information of the environmental impact of production and storage,
as well as transportation. To be sure, it is doubtful that sellers of foods
whose production and transportation impacted heavily on the environment
would voluntarily agree to label them as such. For farmers of
sustainably-produced local foods, however, ecolabels could be an effective
marketing strategy.



Given the climate and diverse, sophisticated tastes of such a multicultural
country as Canada, it would be far-fetched to claim that our food needs
could be completely addressed through local agriculture. However, much of
the food that is currently being imported into Canada, especially during
the warmer months of the year, could be grown locally instead, with minimal
environmental impact. Ethnic specialty vegetables such as calaloo, red
okra, snakefruit, bitter melons and Ghanaian eggplants have already been
cultivated in Toronto community gardens, producing virtually zero
greenhouse gas emissions. Mechanisms that promote urban food production and
direct marketing strategies such as farmers' markets and community
supported agriculture (CSA) programs can go along way. Encouraging Canadian
wholesalers and retailers to buy local foods when they are available could
likewise play a significant role in reducing Canada's carbon emissions.
Further research into season extension strategies could also lessen the
impact of global warming by facilitating the development of a local,
sustainable food system that operates for much the year.



Education and Research Office

238 Queen Street West

Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1Z7

t.(416) 392-6653 f.(416) 392-6650

info@foodshare.net



Endnotes

1. Government of Canada, Climate change Plan for Canada, 2002, 5.
<http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/plan_for_canada/ plan/index.html>

2. UN FCCC, "Climate Change Information Sheet, Sheet 2, The Greenhouse
Effect." <http://unfccc.int/resource/iuckit/ fact02.html>

3. Government of Canada, 2002, 1.

4. TransMission: Transporation, Culture and Ecology, Winter 1998, Toronto:
Detour Publications, 1998, 26. Cited in Greenest City. "Reducing Food
Miles." <http://www.greenestcity.org/ indexrap.html>, 2.

5. David Suzuki Foundation. "Climate Change." http://
www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Impacts/Health/ Air_Pollution.asp

6. Government of Canada, 2002, 1-2.

7. Government of Canada, Action Plan 2000 on Climate Change, Ottawa, 2000,
4.

8. See CDM Watch <http://www.cdmwatch.org/qualityrestrictions. php> and
Greenpeace and International Rivers Network, "EU Emissions Trading should
not be linked with destructive hydroelectric projects,"
<http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/climate/PRonHydroBriefing.pdf>

9. Statistics Canada, Transport Canada, Transport, energy and the
environment <http://www.statcan.ca:80/english/freepub/50-501-XIE/sect4.pdf>
44.

10. Government of Canada, 2000, 5, 13.

11. Government of Canada, 2002, 2.

12. Statistics Canada, Transport Canada, 45.

13. Government of Canada, 2002, 13.

14. Lucas, Caroline, "Stopping the Great Food Swap: Relocalising Europe's
Food Supply.", www.efrc.com/fmd/fmdtext/foodswap.pdf> 20-21.

15. Sustain and the Elm Farm Research Centre, "Eating oil - Food in a
Changing Climate", press package, <http://
www.sustainweb.org/pdf/eatoil_pr.PDF>

16. Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, The Future of
aviation: the Government's consultation document on air transport policy.
DETR, London, 2000. Cited in

Lucas, Dr. Caroline. "Stopping the Great Food Swap:Relocalising Europe's
Food Supply." 2001, 20. <http://www.efrc.com/fmd/fmdtext/foodswap.pdf>, 20.

17. These factors are taken from the chart "Energy use of Different Forms
of Transport" (figure ten) in Lucas, Caroline, "Stopping the Great Food
Swap: Relocalising Europe's Food Supply," 20.

18. Ibid, 10, Fig. 10.

19. Halweil, Brian, "Home Grown: The Case for Local Food In a Global
Market." Worldwatch Paper 163, 2002, 20.

20. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, "Food Balance Sheet
2001" (www.fao.org) cited in Sustain and the Elm Farm Research Centre,
"Eating oil - Food in a Changing Climate", summary
<http://www.sustainweb.org/pdf/eatoil_sumary.PDF>

21. Greenest City. "Reducing Food Miles." <http://
www.greenestcity.org/indexrap.html>

22. For example see Lucas, Caroline, and Sustain and the Elm Farm Research
Centre.

23. Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), "Monthly
Trade Bulletin." Volume 5 Number 8,October 2003.

24. Halifax Initiative, "Impacts of the SAP on the farm sector in Canada"
<http://www.halifaxinitiative.org/index.php/
Issues_StructuralAdjustment_SAPs/247>

25. DFAIT.

26. Statistics Canada, "2001 Census of Agriculture - Canadian farm
operations in the 21st century." The Daily. Wednesday, May 15,
2002.<http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020515/d020515a.htm>

27. Statistics Canada, "2001 Census of Agriculture - Income of farm
families."

28. Pye-Smith, Charlie. "Transporting Food: The Long Haul," Race to the
Top, <http://www.racetothetop.org/case/case4.htm>2.

29. Pirog, Rich and Pat Schuh, "The Load Less Travelled: Examining the
Potential of Using Food Miles and CO2 Emissions in Ecolabels," 2002, 4.



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Sustain and the Elm Farm Research Centre, "Eating oil - Food in a Changing
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(December 15, 2003).



UN FCCC, "Climate Change Information Sheet, Sheet 2, The Greenhouse
Effect." <http://unfccc.int/resource/iuckit/fact02.html>



WHO WE ARE: This e-mail service shares information to help more people
discuss crucial policy issues affecting global food security. The service
is managed by Amber McNair of the University of Toronto in association with
the Munk Centre for International Studies and Wayne Roberts of the Toronto
Food Policy Council, in partnership with the Community Food Security
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  • [Livingontheland] The Role of Local Food Systems in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Tradingpost, 05/23/2005

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