Food miles and sustainability

Food miles is defined as the total distance in miles a food item is transported from field to plate. It has become accepted as a convenient indicator of sustainability. It has led to a general movement towards local production and local consumption in order to minimize them. This raises fundamental questions about the sustainability of the globalized food trade and the increasing concentration of the food supply chain and distribution in the hands of fewer and fewer transnational corporations.

The United Kingdom’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has commissioned a company to look into the validity of food miles as an indicator of sustainable development. The company commissioned to do the report was EAA Technology, formerly part of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. It came up with some damning evidence against the dominant food system.

The report identified five most striking changes in the UK food production and supply chain in the last 50 years that have greatly increased food transport:

1) Globalization of the food industry with increased imports and exports and even wider sourcing of food within the UK and abroad.

2) Concentration of the food supply base into fewer, larger suppliers, partly to meet demand for bulk year-round supplies of uniform produce.

3) Major changes in delivery patterns with most goods now routed through supermarket regional distribution centers using larger HGVs (heavy good vehicles).

4) Centralized and concentrated sales in supermarkets where a weekly shop by car has replaced frequent shop visits.

These trends all add up to food miles. Since 1978, the annual amount of food moved by HGVs in the UK has increased 23 percent with the average distance for each trip also up by 50 percent.

The report stated: "The rise in food miles has led to increases in the environmental, social and economic burden associated with the transport. These include carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution, congestion, accidents and noise. There is a clear cause and effect relationship for food miles and these burden – in general, higher levels of vehicles activities lead to larger impacts."