Local Food Not Necessarily Greener

We've all heard the mantra: when it comes to buying food, "closer is better." Locally grown produce has a smaller "carbon footprint." If you purchase groceries that are not harvested nearby you're contributing to the destruction of the environment because of all the energy consumed transporting the goods to you.

Environmentalists, hip restaurateurs and the media have been harping on this so long it makes you feel guilty if you so much as look at a stalk of out-of-state celery. To be a "locavore" is the in thing.

But is it true? Is local food greener? According to several recent studies it may not be.

In 2006 New Zealand's Lincoln University issued a report stating that meat and dairy products shipped to Europe (from New Zealand) had a smaller environmental impact than the same goods sourced locally. Inputs like animal feed, water and fertilizer often contribute far more to a food's "footprint" than its transport. (Source: Progressive.org.nz)

Because many New Zealand farmers use organic animal feed, take environmentally friendly steps to dispose of waste, and employ other green animal-husbandry techniques, their meat and dairy products are actually kinder to the earth, even after factoring in the fuel consumed to transport them.

That report may seem self-serving, but other studies corroborate its findings. One by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has concluded that a single indicator based on distance traveled is an inadequate measure of environmental impact. Whereas British consumers once paid close attention to "food miles," they are now instructed to also consider how their groceries are produced, processed, packaged and stored. (BBC.co.uk)

A team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, is also studying the subject. Tom Tomich, director of the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, told the New York Times that, while their research is not yet complete, the fact that something is local doesn't necessarily mean it's better, environmentally speaking. (New York Times, Dec. 9, 2007)

How far food travels from farm to fork is certainly important, he says, but so is how food is grown, processed, packaged and how it is transported to market. Moving food by container ship or rail is relatively energy efficient, while shipping by air or small quantities by truck is not. As a result, a local farmer who drives from market to market in an old pickup may be causing more pollution than the same produce brought in by rail from across the country.

"Very few studies support the idea that local-food systems are greener," Rick Pirog of Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture told Newsweek magazine (March 17, 2008).