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Between 1968 and 1998, world food production increased by 84% while world food trade increased a staggering 184% (NRDC, 2007). Food moves all over the world, some of it with good reason due to unavailable crop land but most of it just to tickle the consumer taste buds. Moreover, most of us don't even taste the difference! In my first post I mentioned that in 2008 (USDA, 2008), the United States exported 1.9 billion pounds of meat and veal and imported 2.5 billion pounds of the same. What do you think, did anyone taste the difference? We could just cut back in global meat swap without us even noticing! Besides the obvious waste of fossil fuels and increased damaging greenhouse emissions, global meat trade has another dirty side: all of this meat needs refrigerating. Can you imagine the amount of energy wasted on refrigerating the Kobe meat from Japan while it travels to the London upscale restaurants?
The term 'food miles', coined in the UK in 1990s, is based on a fairly simplistic notion: the further your food has travelled in order to get to your plate, the more harmful environmental impacts it must bring. But do consumers really care? An interesting study by Kemp et al (2010) reveals that only 3.6% supermarket customers in the UK make conscious choices considering the origin of the product. The authors explain that food products are generally very low involvement purchases and very little consideration besides price and taste goes into the decision-making process. While other consumer durables from complex categories require careful attention, supermarkets have made it really easy for us to shop 'quickly' without really thinking what we buy. Stepping into the supermarket, we take our first taste with our eyes and rarely check the label for the origin.
A good example to illustrate the ridiculous extents to which today's food trade is willing to go to: Fiji Water. Have you not heard about it? This is natural Artesian water that is bottled in the Island of Fiji and then shipped across the Pacific to the United States and Europe. It is often more expensive than gasoline and bears enormous fossil fuel costs through transportation. The people behind Fiji often try to greenwash the water production as beneficial for the local environment and as an alternative to cutting down rain forests. I will leave you with a video in the end which tries to do exactly that and you can decide for yourself.
Fiji water has been welcomed with open hands in the United States with political figures like Obama and McCain openly promoting this 'coolest' water in the world. The popularity of Fiji water tells a sad story about our society's weakness to marketing. The bottom line is, this bottled water brings huge transportation costs and increases in emissions warming our planet. But somehow people are still happily drinking it. I leave you with a little 'greenwashing' Fiji video by Climate One, are you convinced?
Here are some more news and articles on Fiji Water. Despite their efforts to stay keep a low profile, Fiji Water has been a very controversial topic. Here you can also read about the conflict of tax rises in Fiji and find out more details about Fiji Water:
Have a nice reading week!
Till next time,
Laura
I've never come across Fiji water in a shop here (maybe that's just because I haven;t been aware that it even existed!) but it just seems unbelievable that people can justify this... as if bottled water isn't ridiculous enough as it is!
ReplyDeleteExactly! Bottled water itself is already soo unbelievably ridiculous and rarely better quality than water from our kitchen taps! But the last time I saw Fiji Water was in Selfridges, also in Waitrose. So I'm guessing they are targeting the more upmarket places where people would be willing to pay more for water than gas!
DeleteAfter reading your post, I don't know how it has never occurred to me before that there is a crazy amount of emissions released from the unnecessary transport of food around the world! I will definitely pay more attention to where my food has come from in the future!
ReplyDeleteHey Elena! Right, we don't even realise it! It comes so naturally to us today that our tomatoes come from Spain, our bananas from Ecuador and our best delicacy meat from Japan. Crazy!
DeleteI am a bit anal when it comes to deciding where my food comes from and always try to make it local produce - I even go so far as to mark on my receipts where each product has come from! However I do understand that many countries rely on exporting goods to survive and in some ways I think that it does have some positive bearing, even with the negative impact of emissions.
ReplyDeleteFiji water is a great example because the country is limited in its natural resources and the water provides them with something to export. Of course it is ridiculous that people buy it, but for those who produce it, it may be survival - don't quote me on this though as I am not aware if it is the natives exploiting this or an outside company.
On the other hand, I really enjoy travelling to different countries and eating the local produce. I wouldn't mind if I could only eat bananas when I go to the countries of their origin.
Hi Nathan! Yes, in one way the water from Fiji can be considered as a survival for the locals but if you look more closely, it seems that Fiji Water is taking up most of their freshwater resources and provide little rehabilitation for the local population. There are always two sides of the story, you are right!
DeleteHi Nathan, I was wondering whether you consider the fact that domestically-grown produce may actually generate more environmental emissions than food imports: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving
DeleteI agree with the article that reducing the climate-impact of food is much more complex than simply reducing food miles and fear that people are just using the 'shop-local' approach to avoid more considerable changes in diet such as cutting out meat and reducing their dairy intake.
Really interesting article Laura. I'd never thought about how food trade growth has developed in comparison to food consumption - do you know how this compares to growth in world trade overall?
Thank you for that Agnes, it certainly puts a new light on things. I am aware that food miles are not the only concern for the environmental emissions of food. If only there was some database for all of this information! The fact that information about the emissions produced is not easily accessible makes eat green an impossible problem!
ReplyDeleteDiet change is definitely more important and I have already taken this into consideration.