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Local food is better for the environment. This is one of the stubbornest myths when it comes to sustainable food systems and one of the bubbles I have tried to pop when I tell people about their eating habits. Instead of just shopping locally, I asked them to think about what they eat (more vegetables, less meat) and how it is produced because transport is only responsible for around 6% of global food emissions.
So, earlier this month, Bloomberg reported on a new study published by researchers from Sydney University, Beijing Technology and Business University, and Wuhan University in the renowned scientific journal Nature Food, claiming that food transport emissions are up to 7.5 times higher than previously estimated. The article also highlighted that “fruits and vegetables are particularly carbon-intensive to ship due to their bulk and the need for refrigeration during transport.”
My colleagues and friends loved this news – the article arrived in my inbox at least a dozen times. Eating local meat seemed like a much more pleasant climate solution than switching to a plant-rich diet. Sorry to pop the bubbles once again, but looking closely at the study results, they don’t support the claims in the headlines about the benefits of local food and the disadvantages of eating vegetables.
[Interested in how we can transform food systems to feed a more populous planet fairly and efficiently while conserving and regenerating the natural world? Check out the VERGE 22 food program, taking place in San Jose, California, October 25-28.]
The study mainly arrived at new estimates on transport due to the categorization of emissions. Food systems literature typically examines transport emissions in two buckets:
The second bucket is what matters when it comes to eating local versus global because consumers are more interested in how far the food has come, not so much from where their farmer’s tractor, gasoline, and the fertilizer. But the new study added both emissions into a single transport emissions calculation, which does not provide useful information on whether eating local food is better.
The authors also assume that all vegetables are refrigerated in transit, increasing emissions due to increased energy needs, but that’s not true. Only selected perishable fruits and vegetables such as berries, leafy greens, and zucchini are refrigerated versus more stable items such as apples and most root vegetables. Many regions of the world still don’t have temperature-controlled supply chains (which leads to more food waste, but that’s another story). This means that the current transport of vegetables has lower emissions than the authors assume.
Local food is not a silver solution for sustainable eating. Saving a few food miles makes only a marginal difference to emissions.
To sum it up, the study didn’t establish a new truth about food and transportation. Food miles are not yet the top spot when it comes to the climate footprint of the food system. Having established this, I am not averse to eating local food. I am a regular visitor to my farmer’s market and love to get fresher, higher quality options with less packaging than most supermarkets.
But local food is not a silver solution for sustainable eating. Saving a few food miles makes only a marginal difference to emissions. As a recent meta-analysis of two decades of research on local food systems shows, there are other benefits to buying local food, but they are less straightforward and have more caveats than is often thought.
Here are the three factors I hear about the most:
So in the end, it all depends. Local food can be better, but it doesn’t have to be. If you really want to know, you need to ask a lot of questions and learn what kind of diet could realistically support your region, given its ecosystem and available farmland. But if you don’t, please don’t swap your Trader Joe’s veggies for local beef, even if they’re wrapped in plastic.
