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Local food is not necessarily more environmentally friendly. According to a paper on food transportation and reducing its carbon footprint, about 11% of typical
by scott_s 8y ago
Local food is not necessarily more environmentally friendly. According to a paper on food transportation and reducing its carbon footprint, about 11% of typical US food consumption's carbon footprint comes from transportation [1]. If the food you're eating from the area you're in is not suited well for growing that kind of food, it's quite possible the local farmers are making more of a carbon impact versus growing it in a more suited area and shipping it.
[1] "Food transportation issues and reducing
carbon footprint", Wayne Wakeland , Susan Cholette , and Kumar Venkat. http://www.cleanmetrics.com/pages/Ch9_0923.pdf http://www.cleanmetrics.com/pages/Ch9_0923.pdf
- ryanmercer 8y agoTransporting food is a lot more than just fuel consumption, the farther you transport a given amount of food the greater your loss potential is to spoilage/contamination/infestation etc. It also promotes unsustainability, the US exports an insane amount of grain and imports nearly half of it's fruit for example, using land in America to feed livestock and people in China, Russia, India etc while eating fruit year round by importing it from Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, Australia, New Zealand etc.
- 11235813213455 8y agolocal at country scale I meant (France or Italy which is near)