Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Locavore and the bigger picture

National Retail Federation (the Voice of Retail Worldwide) in its trade magazine "Stores" has legitmized the "locavore" with the April cover story on the growing movement, calling it "a zeitgeist of 21st century retailing that describes the way an increasing number of people shop which, in turn, is impacting the way supermarkets stock their shelves."
This is the magazine that usually covers items like the effect of the current economy on affluent spending.

A more informed article, and adding several shades of gray to the matter appeared in the New Yorker by Michael Specter "Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science". He turns common sense of buying local on its head when he interviews Adrian Williams, an agricultural researcher in the Natural Resources Department of Cranfield University, in England. "He has been commissioned by the British government to analyze the relative environmental impacts of a number of foods. 'The idea that a product travels a certain distance and is therefore worse than one you raised nearby—well, it’s just idiotic,' he said. 'It doesn’t take into consideration the land use, the type of transportation, the weather, or even the season. Potatoes you buy in winter, of course, have a far higher environmental ticket than if you were to buy them in August.' Williams pointed out that when people talk about global warming they usually speak only about carbon dioxide. Making milk or meat contributes less CO2 to the atmosphere than building a house or making a washing machine. But the animals produce methane and nitrous oxide, and those are greenhouse gases, too. 'This is not an equation like the number of calories or even the cost of a product,' he said. 'There is no one number that works.'
Three examples are cited:

New Zealand apples v. United States or Norther European apple
The environmental burden imposed by importing apples from New
Zealand to Northern Europe or New York can be lower than if the apples were
raised fifty miles away. “In New Zealand, they have more sunshine than in the
U.K., which helps productivity,” Williams explained. That means the yield of New
Zealand apples far exceeds the yield of those grown in northern climates, so the
energy required for farmers to grow the crop is correspondingly lower. It also
helps that the electricity in New Zealand is mostly generated by renewable
sources, none of which emit large amounts of CO2.
New Zealand Lamb v British lamb
Researchers at Lincoln University, in Christchurch,
found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped eleven thousand miles by boat
to England produced six hundred and eighty-eight kilograms of carbon-dioxide
emissions per ton, about a fourth the amount produced by British lamb. In part,
that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most
grazing land in Britain (or in many parts of the United States).
Air-shipped Kenyan roses v Holland roses in England
Williams and his colleagues recently completed a study that examined the
environmental costs of buying roses shipped to England from Holland and of those
exported (and sent by air) from Kenya. In each case, the team made a complete
life-cycle analysis of twelve thousand rose stems for sale in February—in which
all the variables, from seeds to store, were taken into consideration. They even
multiplied the CO2 emissions for the air-freighted Kenyan roses by a factor of
nearly three, to account for the increased effect of burning fuel at a high
altitude. Nonetheless, the carbon footprint of the roses from Holland—which are
almost always grown in a heated greenhouse—was six times the footprint of those
shipped from Kenya. Even Williams was surprised by the magnitude of the
difference. “Everyone always wants to make ethical choices about the food they
eat and the things they buy,” he told me. “And they should. It’s just that what
seems obvious often is not. And we need to make sure people understand that
before they make decisions on how they ought to live.”


Of course, if we didn't insist on tasteless giant strawberries in the dead of winter or roses in February then all of this would be moot, now wouldn't it? Buy local, buy seasonal.

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