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The term "food
miles" - how
far food has travelled before you buy it - has entered the enlightened
lexicon.
Environmental groups, especially in Europe,
are pushing for labels that show how far food has travelled to get to
the
market, and books contemplate the damage wrought by trucking, shipping
and
flying food from distant parts of the globe. There are many good
reasons for
eating local - freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and
preserving open
space - but none of these benefits compares to the claim that eating
local
reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins
recycling,
biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as
individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the
environment.
These life-cycle measurements are causing
environmentalists
worldwide to rethink the logic of food miles. "Eat local" advocates
are bound to interpret these findings as a threat. We shouldn't. Not
only do
life-cycle analyses offer opportunities for environmentally efficient
food
production, but they also address problems inherent in the eat-local
philosophy. Consider the most conspicuous ones: it is impossible for
most of
the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet through exclusively
local
food production - food will always have to travel; asking people to
move to
more fertile regions is sensible but alienating and unrealistic;
consumers
living in developed nations will, for better or worse, always demand
choices
beyond what the season has to offer. [1]
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The only answer is the localization of food production and
distribution.
According to a study carried out in 2001 greenhouse gas emissions
associated
with the transport of food from the local farm to a farmer's market are
650
times lower than the average sold in supermarkets. In addition, to
produce food
locally, as the Report notes, "would be a major driver in rural
regeneration as farm incomes would increase substantially". There would
also be very much more co-operations among local people and communities
would
be revitalized. [2]
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