Food Miles is a Crock

[Kouign Aman]

And take all the fun and fire out of the debate? That would be a shame.

[NikaBoyce]

And take all the fun and fire out of the debate? That would be a shame.

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*shrugs* eh, not much of a debate.

[John Whiting]

The actions that we take as individuals, such as growing our own food, certainly contribute to the larger good; but if Al Gore (and the entire scientific establishment) are not merely scaring us with a horror story and we are indeed destroying our environment, then more is required than merely cultivating our private gardens, which will ultimately be burned up or inundated, along with the gardeners.

[Carrot Top]

Well, John, your story about Cuba was interesting. Do you know if there has been any discussion within the groups who study these things as to whether or how that could occur in other places that do not have the same geography or political or cultural systems that Cuba has?

P.S. I'll try to use a big vocabulary word here. Let's see if it fits. "Comparative Feasability Studies".

Edited August 9, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

Efficiency has been broadening our definition of 'local' for as long as people have been forming communities.

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I thought that was a truly beautiful line that you wrote, Kouign Aman.

[Kouign Aman]

But if one does reduce one's driving etc, by growing one's own food, then that drop in the bucket may be the one that keeps it from overflowing long enough to find the means to more dramatic reduction. Its unlikely to hurt, and the product tastes good, plus gardening has a number of other intangible benefits.

Eating seasonally is fun. Its a great way to celebrate summer ever since my first boss explained I dont get to take June thru September off anymore.

The really whacko stuff is shipping bottles of drinking water, in my opinion. And yet, our local tap water tastes so bad, its an ever present temptation. (and of course, our local drinking water travels far. We just let gravity do most of the shipping). Years ago, the Japanese beverage Pocari couldnt make a profit in the US due mostly to the cost of the steel can it required. Now people ship water from Fiji. Maybe its time for Pocari to make a comeback.

Ah well. It would be good to crunch some numbers and figure these things out in exhaustive detail. Anybody looking for a dissertation topic?

[Carrot Top]

The really whacko stuff is shipping bottles of drinking water, in my opinion. And yet, our local tap water tastes so bad, its an ever present temptation. (and of course, our local drinking water travels far. We just let gravity do most of the shipping).

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Aside from drinking water, much of California's agriculture is made possible by irrigation made possible by goverment (and perhaps private investment? I don't know the full history) substructure.

An astounding accomplishment and a fearsome thing both at the same time.

(Now there's a science fiction story idea - California somehow loses its irrigation substructure and the entire state has to be fed on whatever food is grown in the rest of the country.)

Edited August 9, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[John Whiting]

Well, John, your story about Cuba was interesting. Do you know if there has been any discussion within the groups who study these things as to whether or how that could occur in other places that do not have the same geography or political or cultural systems that Cuba has?

P.S. I'll try to use a big vocabulary word here. Let's see if it fits. "Comparative Feasability Studies". 

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As a model for the entire planet, it could obviously be shot full of holes. For a start, try applying it to Greenland. And without a quantum leap in human intelligence, it would probably require imposition by an authoritarian regime such as Castro's.

All it proves is that under certain conditions of enforced isolation and autonomy, plus an ideal growing climate, such a system is possible. In other words, it's no longer merely hypothetical--it has actually happened.

[John Whiting]

(Now there's a science fiction story idea - California somehow loses its irrigation substructure and the entire state has to be fed on whatever food is grown in the rest of the country.)

Potentially, not science fiction but science fact. In his lecture series, A Short History of Progress, Canadian archaeologist/anthropologist Ronald Wright tells how the irrigation in Mesopotamia that first made agriculture possible on a large scale ultimately led to the destruction of the soil itself. Over several hundred years, the land became salty from constant water evaporation and begin “to turn against the tillers,” leading ultimately to the collapse of Sumerian civilization. A few of its great cities “struggled on as villages, but most were utterly abandoned.” The land never recovered; much of modern Iraq's formerly irrigated land remains saline, “sour and barren…a desert of their making.”

[Carrot Top]

Yes, I had heard of that tale. What we accept unquestioningly as desert-always-desert was not always desert. It is true that truth can be stranger than fiction (or if not stranger at least sturdily eerier).

Well. I guess I'm glad those guys are working on growing food from cells in labs.

[John Whiting]

What we accept unquestioningly as desert-always-desert was not always desert.

It's now creeping into southern Europe. Greece and Italy were once densely forested; in the 6th century B.C. the Athenians were well aware of the damage they had done. Solon and then Pisistratus tried to introduce reclamation measures, but funding and political will were ultimately lacking. Two centuries later Plato wrote perceptively and movingly of what had been lost:

What now remains compared with what then existed is like the skeleton of a sick man, all the fat and soft earth having wasted away….Mountains which now have nothing but food for bees…had trees not very long ago.. [The land] was enriched by the yearly rains, which were not lost to it, as now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea; but the soil was deep, and therein received the water, and kept it in the loamy earth…feeding springs and streams running everywhere. Now only abandoned shrines remain to show where the springs once flowed.

Later the same abuse of the soil took place in Italy, which had been well-wooded until about 300 B.C. As a result of ecological destruction, the Roman Empire gradually became dependent on imported grain, ultimately contributing to its downfall. Ovid wrote of the land’s deterioration in much the same vein as Plato.

[Anna Friedman Herlihy]

My post was mainly to illustrate how it's such a delicate balancing act, and how little difference those of us who go to fairly great extremes to be environmentally aware may be making. What I do certainly makes me feel better about it all, and I certainly get much better tasting food than the supermarket (which I do have to resort to on occasion for things like...flour).

But my hope is that the more people make little baby steps, the better off the world will be after all. If everyone just grew one of the vegetables they eat on a regular basis (lettuce, for example, is easy to grow in a pot on a semi-sunny windowsill), would the saved energy, fewer chemicals, and the like make much of a dent in the global ecological problem? I like to think that it would, but it would be a seriously good dissertation topic as Kouign mentions (sorry, I'm already working on one )

[Shalmanese]

detergent doesnt really work... best is picking and killing. that only requires me to burn my own ATP.

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But ATP consumes calories which means you need to eat more which means more carbon is consumed to bring you that food...

[NikaBoyce]

detergent doesnt really work... best is picking and killing. that only requires me to burn my own ATP.

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But ATP consumes calories which means you need to eat more which means more carbon is consumed to bring you that food...

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i didnt want to add any more here but i had to point out that i have VERY considerable reserves which would do with a bit of a draw down .. so dont worry about my calorie deficit.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

And take all the fun and fire out of the debate? That would be a shame.

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*shrugs* eh, not much of a debate.

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I gotta agree with this. Considering what the thread title is, though, maybe you should start a new one: Food Miles Is undefined A Crock!

Nika, I admire your passion and what you are doing.

[NikaBoyce]

And take all the fun and fire out of the debate? That would be a shame.

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*shrugs* eh, not much of a debate.

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I gotta agree with this. Considering what the thread title is, though, maybe you should start a new one: Food Miles Is undefined A Crock!

Nika, I admire your passion and what you are doing.

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FabulousFoodBabe: thank you SO much for your kind support!

[saucée]

And take all the fun and fire out of the debate? That would be a shame.

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*shrugs* eh, not much of a debate.

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I gotta agree with this. Considering what the thread title is, though, maybe you should start a new one: Food Miles Is undefined A Crock!

Nika, I admire your passion and what you are doing.

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FabulousFoodBabe: thank you SO much for your kind support!

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Nika, I certainly wouldn't want to diminish your achievement--I think what you're doing is important of course (though these things tend to get lost in the heat of discussion).

The food you produce is an example for everyone, but I still have questions about its larger community value (not to say it isn't valuable, of course it is)--the same as I have questions about anarchy in political theory. What is the connection between an individual's hard effort and benefit to others outside of their immediate family or even their community?

I don't think these are things we can answer and like Anna, I, and I'm sure many others, do a number of things without knowing what the effect on the larger system (whatever that may) might be. Sometimes I guess its hard to see the connection between ethical action and a (hoped for) political action.

I think most people that have posted here are pretty much on the same page and are clued in but my question is: what about everyone else?

[rancho_gordo]

The food you produce is an example for everyone, but I still have questions about its larger community value (not to say it isn't valuable, of course it is)--the same as I have questions about anarchy in political theory.  What is the connection between an individual's hard effort and benefit to others outside of their immediate family or even their community?

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I'm a little confused by this whole topic and I'm not sure where anyone stands.

But Nika isn't an island. The whole localvore thing is a movement that is catching on.

There are nutcases on all sides but growers like Nika are showing us there is an alternative to WalMart superstores and the attitude that "food miles is a crock". That's no small achievement.

Believe it or not, there are lots of people who are really busy and still manage to eat real food and not shop at supermarkets or WalMarts.

[saucée]

The food you produce is an example for everyone, but I still have questions about its larger community value (not to say it isn't valuable, of course it is)--the same as I have questions about anarchy in political theory.  What is the connection between an individual's hard effort and benefit to others outside of their immediate family or even their community?

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I'm a little confused by this whole topic and I'm not sure where anyone stands.

But Nika isn't an island. The whole localvore thing is a movement that is catching on.

There are nutcases on all sides but growers like Nika are showing us there is an alternative to WalMart superstores and the attitude that "food miles is a crock". That's no small achievement.

Believe it or not, there are lots of people who are really busy and still manage to eat real food and not shop at supermarkets or WalMarts.

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I'm also confused about what the topic is here--perhaps the topic's sensationalist title is too polarizing o rthe discussion is framed too broadly and loosely, I don't know.

I think the notion that Nika isn't an island and that people can eat "real food" was already understood to be true. I myself eat "real food" (almost completely local) so I know it can be done. The question I was posing was maybe unanswerable--what is the conncection between mine or Nika's individual actions and possible political/community effect (though I didn't mean to single Nika out in my last post)? I don't think this is a question that can be answered and a number of things brought up in this topic have showed us that "food miles" might not be as simple as we thought (maybe showing us that our assumptions about what helps might not be quite right). Its also undeniably true that a great amount of damage is being done by industrialized food.

I think I have learned a bit from this topic though. I initially accepted the doctrine that long shipping is always bad, local always good. I also didn't think of economies dependant on exporting and the benefit of processed foods shipped far (such as nutritious edible sheets or peanut bars sent to starving nations for relief, etc.). I guess my thinking on the subject has been complicated and I think that's a good thing.

[Anna Friedman Herlihy]

Believe it or not, there are lots of people who are really busy and still manage to eat real food and not shop at supermarkets or WalMarts.

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I would be one of those really busy people. I do manage to squeeze in the time to garden (although I often let the weeds get the better of me for lack of time), the time to source pasture-raised meats, the time to walk or bike to the store or the farmers market if I only need a few things, the time to grab my own bags instead of relying upon plastic ones...

That said, however, you can buy some "real food" at the supermarkets and even WalMart too. As a consumer you just have to do more homework before shopping.

In relation to the title of this topic, I guess sometimes "food miles" are a crock (like with the New Zealand lamb example compared to British lamb from the article that spawned the resurgence of this thread), and sometimes they are definitely not (like when one grows one's own food in one's backyard, without chemicals, using only rainwater....) But once you start adding the cost of other things into the equation (municipal water, "organic" fertilizers and pest control, grow lights for starting seeds inside, building materials for cold frames, fuel for canning, electricity for freezing...), it all gets fuzzy. We just all need to arrive at a place on the continuum of faraway big ag to backyard grower that we each feel comfortable with!

[Shalmanese]

As the starter of this thread, I just wanted to reiterate some of the claims that I made:

Some of the supposed benifits of eating locally is that you become more in tune with the seasons, you support your local community, you eat fresher food and just general all round feel goodness. Now all of these are certainly valid claims and I am not disputing any of them. However, the chief claim that the "food mile" movement is making is that eating locally helps the environment through lowering the use of oil. On the face of it, this sounds fairly intuitive but I wasn't convinced so I decided to dig a bit further and try and answer the question does the choice to eat locally decrease the amount of carbon emitted and it seems like the answer is no.

...

Now, does this on the face of it means that eating locally is crap? Of course not, all of the previous reasons to do with freshness, seasonality and supporting local farmers are still valid. But what is total crap is the idea that somehow eating locally is good for the environment through the decrease in carbon emissions from shipping. While the idea has immediate intuitive appeal, if you peer at the actual numbers, the reality is that modern containerized shipping and distribution has become so efficient that it's only really the last few miles that are important.

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[rancho_gordo]

Now, does this on the face of it means that eating locally is crap? Of course not, all of the previous reasons to do with freshness, seasonality and supporting local farmers are still valid. But what is total crap is the idea that somehow eating locally is good for the environment through the decrease in carbon emissions from shipping. While the idea has immediate intuitive appeal, if you peer at the actual numbers, the reality is that modern containerized shipping and distribution has become so efficient that it's only really the last few miles that are important.

It's not "total crap". It's complicated. And it can be argued in a million ways. And via a million commodities.

[Stone]

I, for one, will never buy beans from California again.

[MarketStEl]

Obviously, the thread title didn't help with its absolutist tone, but to restate Shalmanese's point more concisely:

There are many good reasons to perfer locally produced food, but reducing your carbon footprint isn't one of them.

[rancho_gordo]

Obviously, the thread title didn't help with its absolutist tone, but to restate Shalmanese's point more concisely:

There are many good reasons to perfer locally produced food, but reducing your carbon footprint isn't one of them.

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How about: There are many good reasons to perfer locally produced food, but reducing your carbon footprint isn't always one of them.