Food miles. More complicated than you may think.
For me, food miles have become the single biggest factor when I do my weekly shop. They over-ride pretty much all other considerations these days. “Nothing from outside Europe” is the basic rule… broken only very rarely for certain tropical fruit. Usually in a fit of “Goddamn it! Mango is my favourite food! We’re all going to die someday and I’m denying myself my favourite food! It’s right there in front of me, for a price I can afford. I’m surrounded by people buying apples flown in from Chile despite the fact that they’re on a shelf next to some Irish ones and I’m denying myself a single mango. I’m a frakking hair-shirted weirdo! That’s it! I’m buying one!”
And yes, I do use that many exclamation marks when I’m thinking about it.
But by and large I spend time making sure that everything I buy is sourced from as close to me as is possible. I vividly recall standing in the supermarket one afternoon and pointing out to the woman next to me that she was buying Chilean apples rather than Irish ones. I’ll never forget the look of contempt I got… “I’ll buy what I want!” she insisted in brittle tones. There’s a part of me convinced that she now goes out of her way to buy food from the furthest flung corners of the earth just to spite me. She had that kind of look in her eyes and a terrible hiss in her voice.
It’s a little disheartening to say the least; the thought that my watchful attitude towards food miles is now merely balancing out the damage done by saying, “Excuse me, but did you realise that by choosing the Irish apples you’d be doing your part to combat Climate Change?” in as friendly a voice as serious ol’ me is capable.
Of course, it’s not quite as simple as “Buy homegrown. Save the planet. Everyone lives happily ever after.” Because nothing’s ever that simple. Well, almost nothing. In fact it’s questionable as to whether it’s even possible any more. Can Europe grow enough food to support its population? According to the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), for example, it most certainly can’t. They claim that Western Europe’s arable land is only capable of carrying approximately a third of our current population at “present lifestyle”. This number increases to two thirds if we reduce our levels of consumption to what OPT describes as a “modest lifestyle”.
You can download the Excel Spreadsheet containing detailed global numbers, but for a brief flavour of OPT’s calculations; with zero food imports, the UK has a ‘present lifestyle’ carrying capacity of less than one third its current population. Belgium and Luxembourg; one tenth. France; a half. Germany; a quarter. Holland; one eighth. And so on.
The only Western European nations that come even close to being able to support their own populations at current levels of consumption are Finland, Ireland and Sweden. If you reduce consumption to modest levels, you can add Norway and Denmark to that list. The implications are clear… unless Europe reduces its population significantly, it will need to continue to import large amounts of food from Africa and elsewhere just to prevent starvation (note: this is even if we restrict our consumption to sensible / modest levels).
And that’s not the end of the story either. Hypothetically, what if Western Europe was suddenly capable of supporting the current population? Would we find ourselves in the “Buy homegrown. Save the planet. Everyone lives happily ever after.” situation? Sadly not. As this post over at worldchanging (via Gyrus) makes clear, Western Europe’s voracious appetite has led to a large number of poorer nations retooling their entire economy to function as an extension of European arable land. Huge areas of Kenya, for instance, are devoted to growing salad vegetables for European tables. If that market disappears, it will result in significant problems for Kenyan farmers.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that’s a good enough reason for us to be flying mange-tout and sugar-snap peas up from the equator. Frankly when you realise that amongst the nations bordering Kenya are three (Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia) which suffer regular devastating famines, the fact that Kenya is growing baby corn for our salads instead of regular corn to prevent local starvation becomes rather sinister. We all know the old cliché that famine is not a result of food shortages, but is instead a consequence of inequitable distribution and political corruption. Nonetheless, how many of us are aware of our own culpability in this inequity when we buy Kenyan vegetables?
God bless the market, eh? We in Europe can currently pay more to a Kenyan farmer to airlift fresh salad on to our table than an Ethiopian can pay the same farmer — his or her neighbour — to put staple food items on to theirs. As Tim Worstall (blogging economist) so eloquently put it, “Making money from customers is what businesses do, it is the very reason for their existence.” Market capitalism ensures that agriculture is a business like any other. It does not exist to feed the hungry, it exists to generate profit. Market economists see this as a good thing.
I don’t, needless to say. But as I’ve already illustrated, there is no easy solution here. Europe simply cannot grow enough food to feed itself. We could reduce our consumption significantly and still not have enough land. That said, I would nonetheless urge Kenyan farmers to restructure their economy, accept the pay cut, and start to feed their neighbours. Our inability to feed ourselves is our problem, and leaving hundreds of thousands of nameless black people to starve half a world away is not an ethical solution to that problem*.
For now, I shall continue to support Irish farmers 100% (OK, 99.9%… I’ll still buy the occasional mango). And as transportation fuel becomes less abundant, driving the price of imported food ever upwards, it will become easier to do so. But Europe will soon need to face up to this problem of how we feed our massive population. And between peak oil and climate change, it seems unlikely that using Africa and South America as our personal gardens will be an option for very much longer.
Regardless of whether you had a point or not, I expect I would have reacted to you in the supermarket as a do-gooding nosy busybody just as the woman you mention did. Besides which, you’re effectively saying that in your worldview she’s a stupid cow. No-one likes people telling them about Jesus on their doorstep, and frankly telling me about Chilean apples in the supermarket is the same thing, just some fucker who thinks they know how to live better than I do. Regardless of whether they’re right. You simply have to find other channels.
Personally, the whole climate change thing I now dump in the do-gooder plague pit in a black plastic bag that will be around forever, or at least until the asteroid hits and send us back to the stars. I have gone the other way. I am now unreachable. I’ll do what the fuck I like and not feel guilty about it. The fact that I seem to naturally not buy mangos is neither here nor there. But no-one likes a hypocrite Jim, and what is that woman going to say when she sees you toting your juicy mango round the supermarket eh?
Grrr, your righteous indignation really surprises me. You really don’t know why she reacted to you as she did? It’s as plain as the nose on your face isn’t it? Don’t say anything to anybody in supermarkets is my advice. Just get out quick.
March 20th, 2007 | 12:13pm
by Joel
Needless to say, Joel, on this issue I think you’re talking shit. First up; with regards to the mango Vs. Chilean apples… I was pointing out to the woman in the supermarket that she could source exactly the same fruit (on the next shelf no less) from much closer to home. That her patterns of consumption did not have to change one iota, and yet could be so much better for the environment. The same can not be said of tropical fruit, whether mango or bananas or pineapples or whatever. So the comparison is not valid.
I’m well aware that buying the very occasional piece of tropical fruit would make me a hypocrite were I to try and prevent others from buying Chilean apples. But it doesn’t make me a hypocrite for passing on the information. I didn’t tell the woman that she couldn’t buy the Chilean apples. I simply pointed out that there were Irish apples next to them and left it up to her.
The idea that gently informing people about Climate Change is equivalent to preaching about Jesus is just ridiculous. Or are you claiming that imparting any unsolicited information is “preaching”? That’s plain bonkers, Joel.
just some fucker who thinks they know how to live better than I do
I guess if you’re of a certain mindset (like that woman in the supermarket and your good self) it may appear that way. That’s not how I view the world though. I accept that my actions have consequences, and I accept that I’m part of a society. Your so-called “unreachability” is a carefully manufactured illusion that no doubt keeps you warm and smug at night, but frankly doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I’ll do what the fuck I like and not feel guilty about it.
As I say, with me, I accept that my actions have consequences. And if those consequences have a negative impact on others, I believe I have an ethical obligation to either modify my actions or mitigate the consequences. Your “unreachability” is just another word for “selfishness” for refusing to accept your obligations to others. It’s not the greed of the capitalist, but the greed of the narcissist. And that’s hardly any better.
And while my ‘righteous indignation’ (read: willingness to politely inform) may surprise you; your dismissal of “Climate Change” as just something for ‘do-gooders’ surprises me. I never thought you were someone who believed Western consumers had a right to shit on the poor of the world. And by “dumping” Climate Change into a “plague pit in a black plastic bag that will be around forever” that’s essentially what you’re saying… “Fuck the bastards in Africa or in Bangladesh who’ll die in flood or in famine. Fuck them royally! I’ll do what the fuck I like and not feel guilty about it.”
March 20th, 2007 | 1:38pm
by Jim
My views reflect how tiresome I find “issues” and a wish, above all, to say what I really think. This is quite irrespective of whether such views make me sound: unthinking, uncompassionate, selfish, smug, or whatever. This is not my concern here. I don’t really don’t give a fuck any more about what other people think I should believe are important issues. I’m not even interested in whether they are right or wrong. I can’t be bothered to think about it, or “justify” myself by an endless parade of greener-than-thou bollocks.
Yes, I regard it all as preaching, and it bores the hell out of me. And I don’t care about any of the clever rhetoric that attempts to make my views sound somehow bad, because they are failing right from the word go to understand where I am coming from, and therefore where others are coming from who may not be as honest as me in openly expressing it but nonetheless feel exactly the same. Until you understand that, and have sympathy with it, how will you have a hope in hell of convincing anyone? You’re failing to grasp reality, and just get angry at the people who don’t share your enthusiasm for a bunch of shit being passed off as a crucial planetary dilemma.
More concern about asteroids hitting the planet wouldn’t go amiss. That’s a real issue.
I’ve had it up to here with climate change knickers-in-a-twist. Is it a coincidence that CFCs were outlawed just at the moment the patent ran out? Think it through.
I have only one concern: being true to myself. I am glad, of course, to give you a further opportunity to sound off, as you’re kinda cute when you’re mad. But no, you’re not reaching down deep inside of me or anything. You have yet to engage with your more recalcitrant audience… sorry I can’t be one of the converted that preachers like to preach to. But feel free to rethink your position when knocking on the doors of hoary old buggers like myself.
And by the way, it’s a dirty low-down swipe to make out I don’t believe my actions have consequences. I believe even the tiniest action of mine has consequences. But I’m not going to get drawn into fisticuffs over who’s eaten fewer tropical fruits this year.
Hell, I try to be kind to people and I never knowingly kill insects or eat animals. Surely I’m doing more than most people just on that without having some soapbox food miles bastard chew my ear off when all I want to do is get my lentils from Puy, France, volcanic or not, and fuck off out of there.
March 20th, 2007 | 3:02pm
by Joel
My views reflect […] a wish, above all, to say what I really think.
And yet when I say what I really think, I’m a self-righteous Jesus freak? Hmmmmmm… I think you better think that through again, Joel. I mean, essentially you’re saying that you should be able to say what you really think, but I deserve criticism when I do it.
Yes, I regard it all as preaching, and it bores the hell out of me.
Again, what precisely differentiates my insistence on the importance of Climate Change with your — considerably more aggressive, at least initially — insistence that it’s all just “a bunch of shit being passed off as a crucial planetary dilemma”?
And lest things get out of hand; allow me to assure you that you’ve not made me “mad”. Not a bit of it. I’m aware the world is going to hell Joel. I don’t believe there’s a single thing we can do about it. But nor do I believe that my ethical obligations are altered by the practical futility of the actions they produce.
Your insistence that I ‘fail to understand that you are more concerned with honesty — saying what you think — than with how that makes you appear’ is just wrong. I share that position. And have done pretty much my whole life. Being the slightly weird unpopular kid at school teaches you that. Which is precisely the reason I feel compelled to act upon my beliefs whether or not it is “socially acceptable” to advise a stranger on their shopping habits.
I find it bizarre that you trumpet your willingness to speak your mind so loudly, but in the context of criticising others for doing the same. It’s very odd.
Also, you seem to be implying (with the CFC’s comment and other couched uses of language) that the issue of Climate Change may be a red-herring or even a capitalist conspiracy of some kind. Which is incorrect. It’s a very real physical problem with a vast amount of scientific evidence to support it. And as this problem is being generated — mostly — by the industrialised west; and as its negative consequences will be visited — mostly — on the distant poor; ignoring it here in Europe or America or Japan is tantamount to refusing to accept the consequences of our actions.
I don’t understand how you can see it any other way. Our current actions will have negative consequences for future generations and for the powerless of Africa and Asia today. I believe, as I’ve said, that we have an obligation to act towards minimising those consequences (indeed try to mitigate them entirely). This cannot be done without almost everyone in the industrialised west getting involved (and therefore it won’t be done of course, but see my previous point about futility of action not affecting obligation to act). Therefore, people need to be told. If that turns me into “some soapbox food miles bastard” then so be it.
Your air of superiority is really unwarranted here. All this “Oh, I say what I want even if it does make me seem unthinking, uncompassionate, selfish, smug, or whatever. But you, jim, you’re coming across as some soapbox food miles bastard so you should stop”.
What a load of fucking nonsense.
March 20th, 2007 | 3:41pm
by Jim
Actually, I only had one point. And it wasn’t a very big one.
Namely, that it’s just plain rude to nit-pick strangers over their choice of apples and to justify it on the grounds of having a global conscience is barking.
You know it, I know it. So come off it.
March 20th, 2007 | 3:57pm
by Joel
I bought carrots and potatoes today but sometimes have a mango, is that OK? I had a look at that Optimum Population Trust website, and it looks as if we’ll all be eating sand or stones unless we do something about the number of little humans we produce, or they’ll be eating stones and sand by the time they grow up!
March 20th, 2007 | 4:51pm
by Cath Williams
“I […] sometimes have a mango, is that OK?
Aw hell, Cath, I wasn’t proscribing what people can or cannot do. I wasn’t telling anyone how to live their lives, despite Joel’s assumption to the contrary. I was simply passing on what I believed was relevant and useful information. I didn’t try to prevent the woman in the supermarket from buying Chilean apples, I merely suggested she buy the Irish ones.
As for the information from OPT… it’s very scary stuff and it seems to me that we have an obligation to address it before it develops into a catastrophe. The serene indifference towards others expressed in the phrase “I’ll do what the fuck I like and not feel guilty about it” simply isn’t one I can share. Even if that means I appear like I’m preaching to those who can.
And Joel, despite your protestations that your only point was about the rudeness of offering such advice; it just doesn’t wash when you precede it by insisting that ‘you wish, above all, to say what you really think… quite irrespective of whether such views make you sound: unthinking, uncompassionate, selfish, smug, or whatever’. I assume you’d add “rude” to that list? Right? So why criticise me for doing what you wish to do, above all?
And if that really was “your only point”, could you explain what the hell CFC patents have to do with it?
“So come off it.”?
Right back at you.
March 20th, 2007 | 5:15pm
by Jim
Initially, my only point concerned the idea that you found it hard to comprehend how the woman in the supermarket reacted to you. I wanted to tell you that I agreed with her reaction. I wanted you to see why this behaviour of yours in a public place should be frowned upon. I also said that this had nothing to do with whether you were right or wrong to hold your views about food miles. I wasn’t addressing that. My own rudeness to you is neither here nor there, since I am not a stranger to you. I am not some unannounced tosser criticising my choice of apples.
That’s that.
As the discussion developed I mentioned other things. The observation about CFCs being outlawed at the time the patent ran out is something Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry Kary Mullis noted in his book, “Dancing Naked in the Mind Field”. I was pointing out, I suppose, that much “received opinion” on these sorts of issues become consensus reality with the “right-on crowd” faster than actual evidence can be dug up. Some people seem to think saying “there can be little doubt that” and “all the evidence points to” actually relieves one of the obligation to provide a few primary sources beyond yet more received opinion. This is something Kary Mullis is good at pointing out.
March 20th, 2007 | 6:11pm
by Joel
People find it hard to take criticism – I’m not surprised that the woman reacted the way she did. But that doesn’t mean that you didn’t get through to her in some way, Jim. Maybe you did push that woman one step closer to buying more ethically. You never know.
For instance I get pissed off if I’m cycling around with no front light and people shout at me to get some bike lights. I know I need lights and it nudges me once again to make sure I get around to buying some before I cycle at night again.
It often takes a number of times to make us get around to changing things. Social pressure is an important factor in it. And it’s not nice to feel like your doing something that is socially unacceptable and to feel like people are criticising you. People react badly to it – see Joel’s intense reaction as proof!
This makes being critical something that is hard to do, they’ll hate you for it. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
Far from it.
March 29th, 2007 | 8:47pm
by claire
Jim, for what it’s worth, the mangoes (and the mange-tout etc) are almost certainly backloads and thus a zero marginal contributor to carbon emissions – as in, the plane would have been flying out there anyway with something valuable in it produced by us (machine tools and vehicles mainly), and would have to fly back empty if it wasn’t full of mangoes. The economics of the global freight industry are great fun if you ever want to get into them. Not so sure about Chilean apples but this is the case for most trade with Africa.
April 17th, 2007 | 7:26pm
by dsquared
I agree with Jim and Claire 100%, unfortunately a bit of pressure is currently needed to persuade the ‘Joels’ amongst us to get up off their arse and do whatever they can to help out our planet,its just not an option to do whatever you like and to take no responsibility for your actions. I know we as individuals can only do so much, for example dodging out of work for a quick coffee, fairtrade of course, except the plastic cup takes the whole good out of your ethical purchase. However in my eyes its important to at least make an effort….
May 29th, 2007 | 1:50pm
by caroline