What Is Food Miles?

The transport of live animals

The transport of live animals is important. The number of animals being hauled around the country has grown with the trend for large, centralised abattoirs and meat-processing plants. Animals are also imported from other countries.

The question of quality is also being asked by consumers. Freshly picked fruit and vegetables are better for you. There are some initiatives that are aimed at improving local food in Britain.

Sustain is working to get local food into local schools, hospitals and shops. Buying organic food can help. Fossil fuels used to manufacture and transport chemicals are cut down on by organic farming.

It is important to buy organic food from local farmers. A basket of imported organic foods may have traveled the distance of six times around the equator. Waste must be transported from your home to a landfill site in order to be considered food miles.

Food miles and the environmental impact of food choices

The 2008 paper by Weber and Matthews, Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States is the best of the studies that have verified this. Their analysis of US food emissions shows that almost all of the carbon emissions come from food production, 5% from wholesaling and retailing and 11% from transporting it. Most people think of final delivery transport from the producer to the retailer as the main cause of food miles.

When you look at the carbon footprints of tomatoes, it becomes clear that production emissions can dwarf transport emissions. A 1998 paper by Annika Carlsson showed that tomatoes imported from Spain to Sweden have lower footprints than those grown in the country. You can be more certain that both production emissions and transport emissions are limited by eating food that is both in season and local.

They can be kept out of the cold in stores. Seasonal food tastes better. You need to think about the decisions you make when limiting the amount of flying food.

Food Miles: A Measure of Environmental Impact

Food miles are important because they can help guide you when making decisions in a confusing area or other areas that are hard to think about. Food miles are the distance from the place of creation to the place of sale. It is one way to look at the environmental impact of a food purchase.

Fuel is spent on transporting food to consumers if it travels farther. That means you can use a method to judge how your purchases affect global warming. They also measure vulnerability.

Food that comes from far away is part of the supply chain. The longer a supply chain is, the more vulnerable it is to be disrupted. If war, weather, or politics disrupt shipping, your entire region may go hungry.

Food miles are a part of the environmental footprint of food production. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, you need to think about the food you are consuming. The impact of transport is important.