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Jonathan Harrington interviewed by Newsweek about 'food miles.'

Sounds Good, But ...

We can't afford to make any more mistakes in how to 'save the planet.' Start by ditching corn ethanol.

By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK

Apr 14, 2008 Issue

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130628

Sharon Begly, Senior Editor and science writer for Newsweek, recently interviewed Jonathan Harrington about the issue of 'food miles.’ The article, entitled "Sounds Good But...We can't afford to make any more mistakes in how to 'save the planet," addresses a number of prevailing misconceptions about how we can reduce our carbon footprint. For instance, many people believe that products produced close to home are invariably more climate friendly than those transported from far away. Unfortunately, this may not be the case. More often than not, emissions resulting from the transportation of products from the orchard, farm or factory floor to our local market only constitute a small percent of the total climate impact of our consumption. Let’s look at an example. UK based, The Carbon Trust, recently completed a ‘lifecycle analysis’ for potato chips made by Walkers, the UK’s largest snack food producer. In addition to transportation, raw material processing, manufacturing, marketing, storage, consumer use and disposal and recycling all contribute to the greenhouse gases that are warming our world. The study examined everything from potato production to cooking and distribution methods. The researchers found that farmer land use and production practices, energy used for frying, packaging and waste disposal contribute most to the carbon footprint of the product, while transportation accounted for only around 10% of total emissions.

Dr. Harrington does not say that consumers should not buy local. Supporting local producers, especially organic farmers, strengthens the local economy, government and community. But we should try not to over-inflate the significance of ‘food miles’ in our consumer behavior. And remember, the only surefire way for us to reduce our carbon footprint is to just consume less.