USA Today: Local food is trendy, but is it really more eco-friendly?
... Two new books, however, say local food isn't necessarily more eco-friendly, even though it travels fewer miles. They cite research showing long-distance transportation accounts for only about 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions in food production; most occur at the farm itself through the use of tractors and other equipment and materials.
So if you want to buy local food for its freshness or to support area farmers, fine, but don't do it to save the planet, conclude researchers from the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. Their two-year study, "Cooler Smarter," was published this spring. ...
... Another book goes even further in debunking local-food "myths." Its title, The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet, plays off Michael Pollan's best seller, The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Co-author Pierre Desrochers, a geography professor at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, says large farms growing crops suited to their region are better for the environment because they use less energy per item and grow more food on less land. He says they offer economic benefits, too: lower prices.
Desrochers, who says he has received no funding from agri-business, has no problem with hobby farmers but doesn't want government supporting local food (or, for that matter, ethanol and sugar). Though kids may learn from community gardens, he says, they're better off learning computer and job skills. ...
There are good reasons for wanting to eat local food but reducing carbon footprints isn't one of them. It may actually increase carbon outputs. Large agricultural firms have streamlined the costs of getting food from field to market. A big part of that is reducing energy costs in transportation. Shipping a semi load or rail car load of produce over hundreds of miles is much less expensive and less energy intensive per item than having forty pickup trucks driving produce around to local small markets ... where, I might add, buyers then have to make a trip in addition to their visit to the grocery store, thus adding even more carbon output. Not thinking through the secondary and tertiary impacts of economic choices often has unintended consequences but romantic notions of bucollic bliss frequently overwhelm cool heads.
