In backyards across the Prairies, the raspberry harvests are underway. Bloody fingers stabbed by unfriendly thorns are nothing compared to the deep satisfaction that comes with plucking the fruit and freezing it for the vitamin-reduced winter.
That’s as “local” as food comes, if we use the new and improved definition of the word. It’s transported across the lawn without fossil fuels and it’s harvested by hand, with no machine in sight.
It’s all very well for those with yards, raspberry bushes and freezers — although the last of which does add its tiny bit to the world’s carbon footprint.
Read Also
Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
But man and woman cannot live on garden tomatoes and raspberries alone.
Reality dictates that a balanced diet must come from further away. The question for many is, how much farther — 100 miles, or 1,000? And what is the cost, environmentally and nutritionally?
A recent report by the Conference Board of Canada, Fast and Fresh: A Recipe for Canada’s Food Supply Chains, addresses the locally produced food option and essentially concludes that long-distance transport of food both fresh and frozen is economical and environmentally sustainable.
The board is not alone. Other experts have long since said that the local food discussion has come down to transportation costs and that is simply not a reasonable way of determining efficiency.
“Working out carbon footprints is horribly complicated,” said Gareth Edwards-Jones, professor at Bangor University and an expert on African agriculture, in The Observer back in 2008. “It is not just where something is grown and how far it has to travel, but also how it is grown, how it is stored, how it is prepared.”
‘The concept of food miles is unhelpful and stupid. It doesn’t inform about anything except the distance travelled,” said Dr. Adrian Williams of the National Resources Management Centre at Cranfield University in the same article.
Fairtrade International has also argued that the food miles concept has become too narrow, and is used to “present local food as climate-friendly and to argue against imported food and long-distance trade.” It argues against discriminating between foods based solely on miles from “farm to shop.”
Fairtrade further points out that a U.S. study showed transportation accounts for only four percent of the overall carbon footprint of the food system.
Clearly, then, the conference board has a lot of backing on its findings, which will contribute to a proposed national food strategy in spring 2014.
The growing backlash against local food, as it’s now understood, appears to be a positive for farmers who export. The potential impact will not be even across the board. Meat exporting will likely continue to be difficult, but those who export pulses, for example, could see some support from a food strategy that improves export infrastructure.
For local food producers, the board’s findings are not necessarily negative either, if people can be persuaded to focus on the right issues.
For example, on the negative side, one could argue that sending a couple of semi-trailers full of food to the nearest urban farmers’ market would be more environmentally sustainable than 50 farm trucks. How much difference there would be is debatable.
But there are myriad good reasons to support local farmers, the main one being economic support itself.
Local food can be fresher, more delicious and more nutritious — all excellent reasons to go local.
However, because of the low economies of scale, it can also be more expensive, which is a deterrent for many families.
Those without deep pockets must be able to rely on a less-expensive food system and that means transporting food from wherever it can reasonably be sourced.
