Thanks, Alan Davies, for bringing some sense into this conversation. I think that you lay out the key issues well and back up your opinions with good references.

The major article by Weber and Matthews to which Davies refers essentially validates what I said in my OLO article almost 2 years ago (www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=5695). They wrap up their analysis in fairly sophisticated terms (life cycle input- output analysis), which ultimately rely on average energy intensities for a multitude of economic sectors involved in an acitivity. All this boils down to "if it costs more, it uses more energy". New Zealand products in London have been analysed to embody less energy- and hey! they cost less too! It's the same for all products.

Davies also looks at the "externalities" beyond the immediate carbon use- like environmental and population issues. The only two ways we know of dealing with economic externalities are legislation or surcharges that are assessed to compensate for the externalities. A levy, or tax on carbon shouldn't be seen as a "compensation", but seen as a way of first, deterring certain practices and secondly, by using the levies to sponsor the development of systems that have lower life-cycle carbon use.

Great article, except it's a shame there's no reference to the fact that higher atmospheric CO2 levels increase world food production. Greenhouse tomato growers actually pump in more CO2 to increase yields. I guess simple facts like these would be counterproductive to the subliminal intent of the article.

The author makes some valid points about the foodmiles story.

Its another one of these "feelgood" issues, which with a bit
of scrutiny, reveals that the figures simply don't stack up.

The biggest wastage of fuel is commonly in the last miles.
ie people will drive 10km and back, to buy their ingredients
for dinner, burning up more fuel then it ever took to grow
and transport the stuff in the first place.

While the author makes some valid points, shouldn't the objective be to reduce the carbon footprint with a combination of sustainable practices. Food miles and means of production are all part of the same story.

Obviously growing bananas in Tassie is almost impossible on a large scale without polluting forms of intervention so in that case, bringing in banans from QLD makes sense. However when food crops are suited to the climate in which they are grown, where good soil health and water management practices are in place locally grown reduces the carbon footprint. Bringing in rice from Asia may be less polluting than growing rice in dry inland areas affecting the health of the Murray, but not less polluting than growing in a suitable local area where water is not an issue.

You cannot just take one aspect of the discussions around sustainable food production ie. food miles, without looking at the big picture, otherwise the argument just looks like more spin for supporting unfettered free trade and food imports.

Pelican: the point is that food miles are such a poor indicator of the environmental impact of ag production that they are not worth bothering with - see the figure quoted that only 4% of farm emissions in the US relate to transport from farm gate to retailer. In fact food miles are downright counter-productive because they lead consumers to think they are doing the right thing when they very likely aren't.

I note “dietary shift” is deemed to save more than local food production. So, if you want to live a vegetarian lifestyle, fine but most of us choose not to and we are still free to make that choice, we are not the vassals s of some vegetarian despot

This is just another theory on how other people could better deploy the resources they are presently free to decide, without prior reference to an “economic planning consultant”.

So, who cares.

As for the price of fuel, it is part of the delivered product.

If a producer can get his product to a wholesaler, who can deliver it to a retailer for a consumer to buy at a price they are prepared to pay, then the component price of fuel just does not matter.

The fuel component, along with the wholesaler and retails costs and margins and the freighter cost of capital and fleet operating and maintenance costs, is reflected in the difference between the price the producer is prepared to accept for producing the food and the price the consumer is prepared to pay to consume the food.

And in that, calculation to explain why grow and consume locally does not necessarily work it is simple

the offsetting benefits of Economies of scale.

Pontificating the component cost of fuel, it is like this -

Now you think you know - what on earth do you think you can possibly do with the information?

Answer - not a lot, in fact, nothing at all.

The Market price has an uncanny way of regulating itself to ensure the supplier and consumer are happy, if they are not they either do not produce or they do not consume.

This article does explain that well known theory regarding economic planning consultants

They have long been considered similar to

a man who knows and can consummately execute every position in the Karma Sutra........

But is lacking of a lady to enjoy them with.

Claudiecat
I would dispute the 4% figure - I have read 25% of CO2 emissions from intra-UK transport (for eg.) once foodstuffs have reached its shores and that is not counting the international journey.

I agree there is more to environmental impact than food miles but it is an important factor in making buying decisions (for me anyway).

The argument is that food miles are not important when factoring in costs of production when climate is not ideal for the crop grown. However in an ideal climate these impacts are minimised other than the usual on-farm impact but that would be applicable to all suppliers. Luckily in Australia we have a variation of climates which is why we shouldn't need to import many foodstuffs.

There are many other reasons to buy local even if you don't subscribe to the food mile concept and that is to support local industry while not aiding and abetting the exploitation of cheap labour in other nations and contribution to decreasing food security in those nations. There are also issues of pesticide use including toxic preventative treatments at point of arrival.

Many countries are now arguing the 'food mile theory' as bogus because it has a direct impact on exports. NZ marketers dissed the idea in reaction to an increased interest in local food in the UK.

Pelican

The are are many problems associated with the food miles concept, the major one being that it takes the focus off all the other issues, including value-chain energy consumption, environmental impacts and labour conditions.

Just because we don't have significant labour problems with food production, we should not delude ourselves about our associated environmental problems. I have read estimates that we have already halved the topsoil of Australia in 200 years of agriculture- the Chinese have literally kilometres of topsoil in many areas. And there is growing evidence that the changes in surface moisture and albedo (reflection of solar radiation)are significant contributors to climate change- "rain follows the axe" is an old farmers' saying.

In summary, while I agree that we should outright ban certain products- like old growth forest timber, goods that are clearly made under labour conditions that are not ILO-acceptible and goods that use materials that are toxic- we should be careful about focussing on one-dimensional issues. If we are prepared to pay more for goods and services, then we must be prepared to accept lower standards of living.

JediM
Our standards of living are pretty good compared with others. Topsoil is an issue granted and soil health, monoculture etc are all worthy issues in the debate about sustainable populations.

China has already surpassed the US in emissions (just recently), imagine what the footprint will be once they emerge as a new economic power. We in the West have to reduce our standards or get away from repeating the same mistakes of the rest of the world in terms of overpopulation which places strain on arable land for food production. We will have to reduce our living standards to ensure others can increase to some extent but many would have us think this equates with living in grass huts, eugenics or eating soylent green.

Materialism and consumerism is also part of the problem.

I agree with the premise that food miles are not the whole story but one piece of the puzzle so to speak.

Pelican

I think we need to distinguish between facts and values before we make our decisions.

Growing things locally, or "organically" may be a lifestyle preference, but it doesn't necessarily follow that these preferences will have a lower "carbon footprint" than some other preference.

The fact that China is emitting a lot of CO2 doesn't necessarily mean that less CO2 would be emitted if we made all (or any) of the things that we import from China. It is plausible that it is better that they do it and achieve economies of scale (and hence reduced cost and CO2) than if we do it in our small factories and community gardens.

It is not easy to sort this out. I refer you to the following article, that has gone to great lengths to address these issues. It is hardly likely that limited data (eg food miles) and subjective preferences are going to give a more reliable picture:

"China’s Growing CO2 Emissions-A Race between Increasing Consumption and Efficiency Gains" by Peters, GP, et al in Environmental Science & Technology, v9 p5939

Jedimaster

I agree it is hard to sort this out - a bit like the recycling issue (energy used vs benefits of reuse etc).

Organic is a lifestyle preference for many and I understand the difficulties of mass production which is why I think we need to get away from monoculture agriculture which would also have benefits on soil health. Just one small example, some farmers are using a legume crop in rotation as well as planting different crops which take-up different mineral elements in each rotation. But I agree this is difficult when looking at large scale production of crops like wheat for the export market.

A quote from an abstract of the article you refer:

"We find that infrastructure construction and urban household consumption, both in turn driven by urbanization and lifestyle changes, have outpaced efficiency improve ments in the growth of CO2 emissions. Net trade had a small effect on total emissions due to equal, but significant, growth in emissions from the production of exports and emissions avoided by imports."

This would seem to contradict the anti food-mile argument if I have interpreted it correctly.

China has it's own huge market inbuilt, our market is really quite insignificant in that context in terms of agricultural products. I take your point about economies of scale in some areas of manufacturing but one would need to work out whether the CO2 emissions from manufacturing on a smaller scale in Australia would be = to the emissions from the freighting of same to Australia.

If one takes the humble tomato, it would be difficult to see how importing tomatoes would result in less CO2 emissions than growing them locally where the climate is suitable and where other clever agricultural methods are being used to aid soil health and reduction of pesticides.

Again, I agree it is often difficult to get one's head around it all. Arjay's new thread on the emissions from shipping are also interesting reading although I cannot comment on the source.

Pelican

I think that the article is saying that most countries are now about as energy efficient as each other, ie each dollar in the economy requires about the same amount of energy in each country. The International Energy Agency published average energy intensities of different countries a couple of years ago, but their latest "Energy Outlook" does not have it.

The main point is that economies of scale prevail in many situations, but not all. Other factors, like fragile goods (like some veges) and goods that have a low value per unit volume or weight have relatively high transport costs. But in many cases, China produces goods in volumes that are unimaginable in Australia, giving great economies of scale (on capital used), added to which are their lower labour costs.

Conventional economic theory says they we should do things that we are good at. We are good at mining high quality coal (if that's not an oxymoron) and iron ore and some other minerals. We can sell them relatively cheaply in large volume and purchase cheap, large volume manufactured goods. Theory has it that if China had to use its own (relatively expensive coal and iron ore, goods would be more expensive. Not to mention their poor quality coal, which adds more particulate pollution per dollar

The last factor is that, if the cost of our goods is too high, then we have to sell them cheaper, therefore making our dollar worth less so we can't import as much. So it all reaches an equilibrium unless someone is cheating.

So there's international economics in a nutshell. Food miles are just a factor in the value chain. They may be important in some cases, but not all. People who think that the world is one dimensional are our greatest risk.

Jedimaster
I am not sure we are good at mining. We are lucky to have mineral resources that are exploited by private enterprise. We are not good at ensuring the owners of the resources benefit from the increase in profits arising from growth/market fluctuations along with investors.

To some extent economic theory is only as good as the last trend and largely depends whether you take the Keynsian or Monetarist view which pigeon holes sometimes to the detriment of improving people's lives - which even Keynes espoused having likened an economist's role to that of a dentist - although said in humour.

Some elements of economic theory are not always based on reality or on morality (however it might be defined). Labour economics is a prime example.

Who decides what we are good at? Why are we not as good in agriculture for example than China or other nations if you take out the labour costs and look at issues of governance (thinking particularly of the milk debacle recently and the use of shadow factories).

I agree there are very few issues that are one dimensional - I have faith most people are aware. Once you ferret through the quagmire of influencing factors coming to a decision to buy local not only in regard to food miles perse, is not a narrow minded view taking into account all those other issues discussed earlier.