The term “Food Miles” has become a catch phrase lately. The concept of food traveling an average of 1200 miles from source to destination has gained a lot of mileage itself and people have reacted to it by supporting local agriculture and  local food systems.

However, with the rise in support of the local has come a backlash of nay-saying. So-called experts claiming that the argument of food miles is bunk and that supporting local agriculture actually uses up more energy due to the smaller “economies of scale”–a loathsome term because of all it implies.

I was listening to a recent Deconstructing Dinner in which guest Peter Andre made this exact argument–that smaller, local, farmers market, central models of food production actually cost more and are environmentally worse–when it struck me that this argument is extremely fallacious, if not very short sighted.

Okay, sure, you have several farmers trucking small amounts of produce and meats into a central point in less than efficient vehicles. And you have individuals driving from home to the market–or farm–to buy the goods and then still head off to the supermarket or other non-centralized shopping. On the surface that seems very fractured and less than efficient. In opposition, in the industrialized food system, huge trucks transport products from the farms to centralized points and then truck huge amounts to be distributed from mega-marts. Supposedly by the very nature of the size of the system and the amounts the trucks carry this is more efficient. Not so!

Let’s have a look at what goes into this “more efficient” system. First there is the farm which uses lots of machinery to work vast acreages. There are the petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides which are over-applied to insure better crop production.  There are huge irrigation pumps to provide water to all this land. There is an army of laborers–each driving their own vehicle–to harvest the crops and there are many trucks and machinery driving in the fields and hauling the harvest away–often times a distance away to centralized depots. This food may get transported by rail from here, or it may not. If it is fresh produce for immediate consumption it is hauled by roadway in refrigerated trucks, from refrigerated storage warehouses in one region to refrigerated storage warehouses in another. From there this food goes out to various markets via smaller trucks. The supermarkets keep the foods cool and people drive in to buy.

Who in the Anti-Food Mile group has counted up all the warehousing, the refrigeration, the energy used to store and haul these goods (it only gets worse if the foods are processed in any way) the energy consumed in producing the packaging for these products, the packaging being hauled away to the landfill, the energy and waste in building these warehouses and supermarkets, maintaining the national road system infrastructure, the pesticides, fertilizers, laborers energy consumption, the power to keep the supermarkets open 24 hours a day, etc?  How is all this expenditure of energy counted or ignored in the Anti-Food Mile argument?  You cannot deny it exists and is part of the equation. To me it seems very wasteful.

Wasteful, at least, when compared with this–In a localized food system you may have farmers markets, a centralized–local–delivery service, or direct off the farm sales. There are no huge warehouses, or supermarkets being powered, or large scale extra refrigeration. The environment isn’t being impacted by the building of these structures for this system. The food is picked and sold fresh and direct. If the farm produces food conventionally and uses pesticides and fertilizers is will be on a much smaller scale and with an eye on economy and (hopefully) environmental factors–there will be much less over application.  Laborers will be from the local area, or the farmers own family–the fuel they use to get to work is only a part of their normal daily expenditure. In addition, due to the smaller scale of farms supporting a local food system there is less tractor work by far, and in some systems next to none. Organic systems use no petroleum based products on their crops yet achieve the same or better yield. The increased support of organic farming in a local food system also means far more carbon is being sequestered in the land, reducing greenhouse gas emission even further.

All this is by way of saying that you cannot convince me that buying foods locally and supporting the local economy–thereby keeping money in the region and country (and out of the hands of corrupt Multi-National Agribusiness’s)–and supporting local farmers and re-establishing local wildlife habitats through diversified agriculture practices, is worse than the industrial, large scale model of food production and transnational shipping. Sure, there are local systems of production–especially  greenhouses using oil products to heat them–which are plenty wasteful but there are ways around that–geothermal heating, hot beds, thermal mass systems–which reduce or eliminate oil dependence. They key, though, is to support these local systems and in supporting them move to effect positive change, something you cannot do with a company and foods 2000 miles away.

Up until last week I believed that up to 53% of the foods in the US are imported–although the Multi-Nationals would like you to believe that only 14% are imported due to the fact that once the raw ingredients flood in and are processed here the food can be claimed to be from the US–now, however I have heard the figure is more like 80%. No wonder there is extreme opposition to the Food Mile argument. Every product the average consumer touches is dripping with unsustainable and rapidly depleting crude oil. The American diet is built on it. By supporting Local Foods, Local Farms and Farmers and building the local economy you do more than just reduce the amount of oil it takes to get you your dinner, you are actually helping to preserve a vital national asset–farmland (remember Pavement is Forever)–and are helping keep urban and industrial sprawl in check.

The line is drawn. Which side are you on–the growing local revolution which by its very nature is low food miles, less oil dependent and relatively secure; or the rather unstable, insecure, unsafe, potentially disease spreading, heavily food mile laden, oil rich (trans-fat and crude) Commercial, Factory, industry driven, line-their-own-pockets- system of business as usual? From my farm, the choice is plain and obvious.

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