food for thought

nickbrat

This is an extract from an article i read in the Independant Newspaper last week. It give an alternatvie view on all sorts of things relating to food, air mile and energy production, nuclear etc. Its an interesting view on the whole topic and encourages debate.

"It's true that our suppers have never travelled so far to reach our plates ? asparagus from Peru, green beans from Kenya, lamb from New Zealand.

Importing bananas and kiwis is one thing (they don't grow so well in Kent) ? but surely it's madness to fill our supermarket aisles with butter, apples and beans from the other side of the world?

Well, not necessarily. The food miles argument is perhaps one of the most criminally oversimplified in the whole green debate.

First, it's worth looking at just how much food we do import. According to the Department for Environment and Food's latest figures, we are 61 per cent self-sufficient; crucially, when it comes to foods we can produce here, that figure rises to 74 per cent.

But what of the relatively small percentage of food we do ship in? The food miles argument would have it that a leg of lamb's carbon hoofprint is in proportion to the number of miles it travels. But that ignores the concept of scale.

Say a small local farm produces 10 tons of lamb, and has a lorry that can carry one ton at a time. And say it is 100 miles from the nearest market. You get lamb with 100 food miles, but the farmers have to make 10 trips to transport their meat.

Meanwhile, lamb from a bigger farm 500 miles away would travel 500 food miles, but they've got a 10-ton lorry so they do it in one trip. Sure, the big truck guzzles more gas than the little one, but not five times as much, so the carbon footprint of the far-flung lamb is smaller.

OK, that's a fictional example. But there have been more rigorous studies. Adrian Williams, an agricultural researcher at Cranfield University, has called the food miles argument "foolish: provincial, damaging and simplistic". Williams and his team have looked at the relative carbon footprints of produce grown locally and thousands of miles away, taking into account factors such as fertilisation, irrigation, means of transportation and harvesting methods ? not just the number of miles from field to fork.

Williams showed that apples from New Zealand may be "greener" than those grown locally because the climate there allows for much greater yields, and farms rely mostly on electricity generated by renewable sources. A study at New Zealand's Lincoln University showed that lamb shipped to Britain produced one-quarter of the CO2 emissions of British lamb when you accounted for the relative reliance on fertiliser and energy-hungry irrigation systems, as well as the method of transport ? shipping emissions have been shown to be about one-60th of those produced by air travel.

And it's not just food and drink that can travel ethically. Williams carried out a study of the lives of 10,000 roses on sale in Britain in February. The total carbon footprint of flowers grown in heated greenhouses just over the Channel in Holland was six times greater than that of stems flown all the way from Kenya.

It looks as if the new generation of green shoppers who'll only buy local have something to think about over dinner. As Gareth Thomas, Trade and Development minister, said at a recent seminar on air freight: "Driving 6.5 miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK."

Its not an argument that a whole heartedly agree with but it is worthy of debate.

Nick

D&DD

This was one of the most interesting articles I'd read for a long time
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024833/Nine-meals-anarchy--Britain-facing-real-food-crisis.html

It shows the effect that other things have on the production of food.
Even I was stunned to read 80% of Londons food is now imported.

Sadly a lot of the food shortages are man-made,for example US farmers grew a strain of rice that was similar to Basmati and wanted to go into mass production with it but Indian autorities blocked them from growing it.. where is the sense in that when people are starving???
At the end of the day everything comes down to money sadly...

People should use this current economic crisis to re-evaluate how they lead their lives and we should all try to be more self reliant.
It won't happen tho'...

*DD joins CTC sitting in a corner humming 'they're coming to take me away' *

Lotus-eater

Whenever I am in my local Asda, I find it hard to find ANY British grown vegetables, with the exception of potatoes, leeks and sprouts. I know someone is going to point out that its the time of year, but it's not, it's the same in the summer.

Yategirl

From D&DD: There will be more price rises this year as the economy is affecting farmers around the world.Most farms work on credit nowadays and as the credit crunch bites their lines of credit are drying up...causing less crops to be planted/harvested leading to yet more price hikes.

I hadn't "clicked" about the above statement - seemed to have bypassed my brain somewhat(!) but.. this problem is going to affect us more NOW than global warming so maybe... just maybe... the people jumping on the bandwagon of GYO/allotment popularity rather than realising WHY we should be growing our own will get the message:

so

My first post: To me, something has to happen to make people realise that things HAVE to change.. until then we won't get people to stop what they are doing and to think about it all...

it could be that the economic crisis IS going to be THE thing that causes more change than any threat of GW?


With regards to what we can/can't grow and space etc to feed our population... if more people GYO and therefore hopefully provide a good proportion of veg from their own garden/allotment, we all get back into eating seasonally and treating meat as a treat rather than the basis of every meal... do you reckon that we could produce enough food to feed us with the allowance of importing some stuff (for example wheat for bread flour - though it will be expensive and bread won't be a mainstay of diets)?

Yategirl

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Whenever I am in my local Asda, I find it hard to find ANY British grown vegetables, with the exception of potatoes, leeks and sprouts. I know someone is going to point out that its the time of year, but it's not, it's the same in the summer.

personally... I feel that supermarkets need to be made to change this OR we all use local greengrocers selling local foods...

i know this is not easy as some people don't have greengrocers (or one in a close enough proximity)... and greengrocers are not finding it easy to compete with supermarkets (we lost our wonderful greengrocers just a couple of weeks ago as people wouldn't walk round the corner from the supermarket to visit him :mad: thankfully we now have a market stall in the centre as I don't want to be visiting the supermarket!)

again.. this all points to GYO to get local seasonal food.. which some people cannot do due to ill health / lack of allotments etc etc etc...

tis all a horrible circle

Lotus-eater

Yategirl wrote: »

With regards to what we can/can't grow and space etc to feed our population... if more people GYO and therefore hopefully provide a good proportion of veg from their own garden/allotment, we all get back into eating seasonally and treating meat as a treat rather than the basis of every meal... do you reckon that we could produce enough food to feed us with the allowance of importing some stuff (for example wheat for bread flour - though it will be expensive and bread won't be a mainstay of diets)?

I have written this on here before, but I feel most of it could be done, given enough time is given to enable it to be done.
However! It won't, it can't, because there are too many people in the country that don't give a toss, way too many.

The only way it will happen, is by us being forced and that will be a disaster.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

before i go and sit in the corner with DD:D

nickbrat.... ithink the bit on the lamb maybe a bit extreme especially about taking into account fertalisation and irrigating of the ground etc... as i was lead to believe the majority of british lamb were bread and reared on mountain farms in wales and scotland etc... so from an enviroment point of niew there is none of the things mentioned needed to rear them... its all natural.... so to speak..on a very high % of the lamb produced here..

lotus eater.... now i think this could actually be down to the supermarkets not whats actually available in britain at mo....as they might be making more money on the imported stuff, so obviously they are going to give more shelf space to those products..

Yategirl

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I have written this on here before, but I feel most of it could be done, given enough time is given to enable it to be done.
However! It won't, it can't, because there are too many people in the country that don't give a toss, way too many.

The only way it will happen, is by us being forced and that will be a disaster.

but will the economic crisis be the force to get people to GYO?



but yes... too many don't give a toss :mad:

Yategirl

_pale_ can i join the corner?? my brain hurts and it is all to scary to contemplate......

COOLTRIKERCHICK

its been a i want, i'll have generation, and this is with all things including food, so a big proportion of our population dont know any different.

as you say it could well happen over the next few years with the economic climate, as i personally think its not going to be a recession, but a depression by the end of it all, and this could push people into growing some of their food out of neccessity not out of its the 'in thing' to have an allotment or grow their own