DEFRA food study claims local food is not always miles better for the environment
Local foods are not necessarily more environmentally friendly than those with higher food miles, a leading government consultant has claimed.
With increasing popularity for locally sourced food, there is potential for the number of vans transporting food to increase, Paul Watkiss, a consultant who led a recent DEFRA food miles study said. There are also occasions where higher food miles may be justified.
Speaking at crop protection specialist BCPC’s conference on global food supply, Mr Watkiss said considering food miles over-simplified the impact of food transport.
DEFRA’s study found the environmental and social costs of food transport in the UK was about £9bn a year. In 2002, transporting food accounted for 30bn vehicle kilometres and produced 19m tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Mr Watkiss said other aspects, such as the distance consumers travelled to purchase foods, needed to be considered alongside the distance the food has travelled.
“It is possible to show very good and clear examples where local food is justified, but we have to look at the wider environmental effects,” he said.
“There are instances where high food miles may be justified – for example importing Spanish tomatoes may use less energy than growing them out of season in the UK.
For more information on local food issues look at our food miles campaign.
ASDA SUPPORTS ‘NAME AND SHAME |
Asda has pledged to take a “proactive stance” on pesticide residues after nine out of 10 Asda customers said they were worried about pesticide levels in fresh produce. A recent survey found 90% of the supermarket’s 14m weekly customers were concerned about pesticides on fresh fruit and vegetables. Speaking to delegates at the BCPC conference, Simon Press, Asda’s pesticide manager, said the retailer was in favour of the government’s “name and shame” programme of residue testing and publication of the test results. “When we tracked our performance ours was the worst of any in the ‘name and shame’ testing two years ago,” Mr Press said. “Now we track our performance against other retailers and our target is to reduce ‘name and shame’ by 10% year on year.” |