A Study into Food Miles & Total Food-System Emissions
New Research Suggests Global Food Miles are Higher Than Thought
This study is interesting not just because it highlights the importance of reducing food transport, but it quantifies it in terms of the whole CO2 cost of the entire world food system. It gives the whole picture, not some glimpse of something that supports a position.
I've been through this study and I thought I'd present them in an easy digestible format. I think...
The study looks at Equivalent CO2* emissions across the whole food chain. It includes all the emission of production and transport, as well the emissions from raw materials and power consumption involved in equipment, plant etc. In other words it includes everything!
It then splits the emissions between food production and transport.
The table below summarises the results.
- Of the total emissions of the food system about 30% are involved with transport, 70% production
- Of the emissions related to transport over 36% are due to the transport of Fruit & Veg!
- The emissions from transporting Fruit & Veg are over 2.5 TIMES higher than producing it!
- Meat production accounts for nearly 30% of ALL food system emissions
For our purposes we are concentrating on the highlighted Fruit & Veg line, but note that Dairy and Cereals/Flour are the next two biggest transport emitters. Add them together and you get to nearly 70% of all transport emissions come from those 3 food groups.
Concentrating on the Veg & Transport emissions line, at 36.4%, the study investigates this further.
It finds, and you'll not be surprised to hear this, 'High Income Nations' (yes we are included) only account for 12.5% of the world's population but for nearly HALF of the associated emissions.
So what does this mean:
- Eat Local Food
- Eat Less Meat
I have also blogged on how this support the principles of Kent Veg Box, namely 100% Kent produce, to reduce Food Miles, to reduce emissions. Click Here
*Equivalent CO2 is a carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2 equivalent, abbreviated as CO2-eq is a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their global-warming potential (GWP), by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming
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