Food Travels Far to Reach Your Table

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Food Travels Far to Reach Your Table

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, November 21, 2002 (ENS) - As families travel across the United

States next week to gather for the Thanksgiving holiday, many will sit down to

eat food that has traveled even farther - between 1,500 and 2,500 miles (2,500

and 4,000 kilometers) from farm to table. A new study by the Worldwatch

Institute details the lengthy journeys that much of the nation's food supply now

takes, finding a growing separation between the sources and destinations of

American food.

Supermarket produce may have traveled thousands of miles to reach your local

store. (Photo by Ken Hammond. All photos courtesy U.S. Department of

Agriculture)The distance that food travels has grown by as much as 25 percent,

according to the report by the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental and social

policy research institute based in Washington DC. The nation's reliance on a

complex network of food shipments leaves the United States vulnerable to supply

disruptions, the group argues.

" The farther we ship food, the more vulnerable our food system becomes, " said

Worldwatch research associate Brian Halweil, author of " Home Grown: The Case for

Local Food in a Global Market. "

" Many major cities in the U.S. have a limited supply of food on hand, " Halweil

added. " That makes those cities highly vulnerable to anything that suddenly

restricts transportation, such as oil shortages or acts of terrorism. "

This vulnerability is not limited to the United States. The tonnage of food

shipped between countries has grown fourfold over the last four decades, while

the world's population has doubled. In the United Kingdom, for example, food

travels 50 percent farther than it did two decades ago.

This reliance on long distance food damages rural economies, as farmers and

small food businesses become the most marginal link in the sprawling food chain,

says the Worldwatch report. Long distance travel also creates numerous

opportunities along the way for food contamination, and requires the use of

artificial additives and preservatives to keep food from spoiling.

Shipping fish and other products from around the world requires the burning of

fossil fuels, contributing to global warming. (USDA Photo by Ken Hammond)Food

transportation also contributes to global warming, because of the huge

quantities of fuel used for transportation. A typical meal bought from a

conventional supermarket chain - including some meat, grains, fruit and

vegetables - consumes four to 17 times more petroleum for transport than the

same meal using local ingredients.

" We are spending far more energy to get food to the table than the energy we get

from eating the food. A head of lettuce grown in the Salinas Valley of

California and shipped nearly 3,000 miles to Washington, D.C., requires about 36

times as much fossil fuel energy in transport as it provides in food energy when

it arrives, " Halweil said.

While most economists believe that long distance food trade is efficient because

communities and nations can buy their food from the lowest cost provider,

studies from North America, Asia, and Africa show that farm communities reap

little benefit from their crops, and often suffer as a result of freer trade in

agricultural goods.

" The economic benefits of food trade are a myth, " said Halweil. " The big winners

are agribusiness monopolies that ship, trade, and process food. Agricultural

policies, including the new [bush administration backed] farm bill, tend to

favor factory farms, giant supermarkets, and long distance trade, and cheap,

subsidized fossil fuels encourage long distance shipping. The big losers are the

world's poor. "

The Crescent City Farmer's Market meets in New Orleans, Louisiana every Saturday

morning, offering baked goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, herbs and canned

goods. (USDA Photo by Bill Tarpenning)Farmers producing for export often go

hungry as they sacrifice the use of their land to feed foreign mouths, Halweil

writes. Meanwhile, poor urban dwellers in both developed and developing nations

find themselves living in neighborhoods without supermarkets, green grocers, or

healthy food choices.

" Of course, a certain amount of food trade is natural and beneficial. But money

spent on locally produced foods stays in the community longer, creating jobs,

supporting farmers, and preserving local cuisines and crop varieties against the

steamroller of culinary imperialism, " Halweil added. " And developing nations

that emphasize greater food self reliance can retain precious foreign exchange

and avoid the instability of international markets. "

Halweil points to a vigorous, emerging local food movement that is challenging

both the wisdom and practice of long distance food shipping.

" Massive meat recalls, the advent of genetically engineered food, and other food

safety crises have built interest in local food, " he said. " Rebuilding local

food economies is the first genuine profit making opportunity in farm country in

years. "

Communities that seek to meet their food needs locally will reap benefits

including a more diverse variety of regional crops, cheaper food that avoids

added costs from intermediate handlers and shippers, and a boon for the local

economy as money spent on food goes to local growers and merchants. Of course,

many consumers will choose local produce just for the flavor.

Unlike supermarket tomatoes, which are often shipped green and ripened

artificially, these locally grown tomatoes ripened on the vine. (USDA Photo by

Bill Tarpenning) " Locally grown food served fresh and in season has a definite

taste advantage, " Halweil said. " It's harvested at the peak of ripeness and

doesn't have to be fumigated, refrigerated, or packaged for long distance

hauling and long shelf life. "

In the United States, for example, more than half of all tomatoes are harvested

and shipped green, and then artificially ripened upon arrival at their final

destination.

Consumers now have a growing variety of local food providers to choose from. The

number of registered farmers' markets in the United States has jumped from 300

in the mid-1970s and 1,755 in 1994 to more than 3,100 today. About three million

people now visit these markets each week, spending more than $1 billion each

year.

Innovative restaurants, school cafeterias, caterers, hospitals, and even

supermarkets are beginning to offer fresh, seasonal foods from local farmers and

food businesses.

Consumers can promote local growers by choosing to buy their produce and baked

goods from farmers markets. (USDA Photo by Bill Tarpenning)North America now

boasts more than a dozen local food policy councils, which track changes in the

local food system, lobby for farmland protection, point citizens towards local

food options, and help create incentives for local food businesses.

But the most powerful force behind the growing local food market is the

consumer. The Worldwatch report offers several suggestions for how consumers can

help to promote local food systems, including:

 

Learn what foods are in season in your area and try to build your diet around

them.

Shop at a local farmers' market, or link up with your neighbors and friends to

start a subscription service featuring seasonal foods from local growers

Ask the manager or chef of your favorite restaurant how much of the food on

the menu is locally grown, and then encourage him or her to buy food locally.

Take a trip to a local farm to learn what it produces.

Host a harvest party at your home or in your community that features locally

available and in season foods.

Produce a local food directory that lists all the local food sources in your

area

Buy extra quantities of your favorite fruit or vegetable when it is in season

and experiment with drying, canning, jamming, or otherwise preserving it for a

later date.

Plant a garden and grow as much of your own food as possible.

Speak to your local politician about forming a local food policy council.

 

For more information on the report, " Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a

Global Market, " visit the Worldwatch Institute at:

http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/163/orderpage.html