Todd Luger :: Blog :: Local Food

OK. I think I am about to touch the third rail of green politics—the unquestioned assumption that eating local food is better for the environment. Well, the other day, I stumbled on to a blog post at HuffPo that led me to an article on Salon.com called "Is local food really miles better?" Now, I have always been a big supporter of local foods, especially local organics. (It even says so in my GreenSpace profile). So, I come at this subject with some trepidation. But, journalistic curiosity must always take precedence. Salon.com is a very progressive Web site. It's been around since the early days of the Web. However, they are true journalists, so they don't shy away from facts that might raise questions about ideas dearly held by the faithful. The author of the article lives in San Francisco and frequents a local farmer's market. She writes:

I noticed a page on the market's Web site that asks, "How Far Does Food Travel to Get to Your Plate?" Too far, it concludes. According to a 2001 study by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the average apple travels 1,555 miles to a Chicago terminal market where wholesalers sell produce to grocery stores. A San Francisco Farmers Market apple, on the other hand, only travels about 105 miles to the Ferry Plaza market building.

So less miles must mean easier on the environment. Well, there's more to it than that:

[So] how does that translate to carbon dioxide emissions? To find out, I crunched the numbers on five types of produce -- apples, oranges, lettuce, greens and squash -- with fuel efficiency estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency and Bay Area truck dealers. Factor in carbon emission figures from Argonne National Laboratory, and I had rough carbon footprints for each farmer and wholesaler.

Local farmers won one category, proving more carbon-friendly on squash. While farmers came from cities about an hour's drive from San Francisco, wholesalers had imported their squash through Arizona from Mexico. In these cases, the idea that more food miles equals more fossil fuels appeared to be true.

But wholesalers beat local farmers on the four other produce items, boasting fewer average carbon dioxide emissions per pound of apples, oranges, lettuce and greens. Apple distributors got almost all their apples from Washington's Yakima Valley, about 700 miles away. (Safeway's California stores get Granny Smith apples from Stockton during fall and winter, and from Washington the rest of the year.) While the two local apple farmers traveled one-tenth the distance, their loads averaged less than 700 pounds -- and generated six times more carbon dioxide per pound of apples than the semi-trailer trucks.

Basically, some of the efficiencies in large-scale production actually trump the closeness of local food. However, there may be a middle ground:

[A] regional system with some urban distribution centers produced less carbon dioxide than a purely local system. The local food movement may adopt a system where smaller growers deliver to larger growers, who then bring food into the city, Pirog says. The primary reason local food isn't as efficient is that small farmers "don't have the infrastructure in place like the big guys do," he says.

In her blog post, Isabel Reminds us that supporting local farmers is not all about carbon emissions, though:

Local farming builds community. Those small-time farmers yet unsophisticated in the means of transportation and year-round gardening will only learn how to efficiently grow and transport their food (albeit a short distance) if they are given a fair shot. According to the Environmental Working Group, The U.S. government--ie, taxpayers--gave "66% of crop subsidy benefits to 10% of the beneficiaries of those programs." More than likely, your backyard farmer was not one of them. If you want to help your neighbor more effectively run his business, support him. Furthermore, farmers markets are a glimpse at the good old days, when people gathered in town halls and communal spaces. They are your excuse to visit Main Street once a week to connect in real time with friends and neighbors--instead of staying home and staring into an anonymous online abyss.