July 6, Byron Shire EchoArticlesHelena Norberg-Hodge concludes her series on the benefits of supporting local food systemsEnvironmental benefits of local food productionn this time of increasing concern over global climate change, polluted rivers, eroded soils and overflowing landfills, the waste inherent in the global
food system
seems particularly insane. Multilateral treaties bind governments to policies, which effectively subsidise ever more international trade. Highly packaged, intensively processed foodstuffs are transported all around the world in the name of economic growth. Agribusiness pours chemical pesticides and fertilisers over our soil, while food corporations pour preservatives and toxic colouring over our food, all in the name of efficiency. The reality is that this system is wreaking havoc on the environment, destroying the countryside, eliminating plant and animal species and dramatically affecting human health. More localised food systems could drastically lessen the negative impact we have on the planet and provide everyone with fresh, safe and healthy food. A localised food economy automatically means a reduction in unnecessary trans-Iportation. International food trade is increasing steadily each year, and often our food travels thousands of miles before it reaches our plates.This is not only food that cannot be produced within our climate zone, but even those that can, including milk, meat, butter and wheat. The UK, for example, not only produces and exports these products, it also imports them in almost identical quantities to what it exports. Most countries are swapping foods on a giant scale.This is highly wasteful of energy and relies almost entirely on the use of fossil fuels. A key feature of local food systems
is that foodmiles are relatively low. This means that local foods use far less energy, and produce less pollution and greenhouse gases than food from the global system. Studies have shown that transporting food by plane from Mexico to the UK produces times the amount of CO2 emissions than the same produce grown locally and delivered through a box scheme. The marketing of local foods is decentralised, which means that not only are foodmiles reduced, the distances people have to travel to purchase food are also relatively low, often within walking distance. The marketing of foods produced as global commodities is highly centralised, with the typical retail outlet being a giant supermarket serving a large area. These supermarkets have tremendous ecological draw-2 EmcWhere E is the number of people aged and over expressed as a percentage of the total population m is the number of eggs in two one dozen cartons and c is the number of free weekly newspapers circulating in the shire.Advertising in The Echo.The intelligent choice.Source Roy Morgan Research.backs, as consumers must often travel large distances, usually by car, adding to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Their initial construction often goes hand in hand with the expansion of roads and usually entails the destruction of greenfield sites outside of town centres. Food is also stored in huge distribution centres before being sent to the retail outlets.This also increases transport as food is sent back and forth across the country from warehouse to warehouse. The current food system accounts for over of all UK road freight. This huge transportation of food across countries and continents obviously needs a massive infrastructure to support it. The ecological costs of the industrial food system must therefore take into account the destruction caused by building huge road networks, airports, shipping terminals and railway facilities. Since local foods are more often consumed fresh, they usually require less packaging, processing and refrigeration than industrial foods from the other side of the world. Foods that have to travel thousands of miles are coated with preservatives, highly processed, and usually packaged in plastic and polystyrene. Packaging food is highly energy intensive and relies again on the use of fossil fuels from places far away from where the food itself is being produced. There is then the problem of what to do with the waste that results from all this packaging. More and more land must be devoted to burying this huge amount of waste because it is produced on a scale that natural processescannot possibly absorb. Much of the packaging is non-biodegradable plastic and even paper cannot break down in poorly aerated landfills, resulting in the formation of methane, another greenhouse gas. Incinerating the waste is equally harmful, producing compounds such as dioxins that can accumulate in the food chain and affect human health. In addition to the transportation and marketing of food for a global market, intensive agricultural production itself is highly damaging to the environment. Local food systems encourage diversity, both in the types of food they produce and in the wildlife around the farms. Food produced in a particular locality will differ from foods grown in another part of the country because of differences in climate, geography and natural resources. For generations, different species have been developed to suit the natural conditions, rather than genetically modified organisms suited only to industrial farms and heavy chemical inputs. Farmers producing for a local market need to produce a much wider range of products to meet the needs of the consumers than they do when selling to giant supermarket chains. Farms that benefit from local marketing tend to be smaller scale and often organic, which encourages a wide range of food and nonfood species to coexist within the farm system. Creating a diversified food system, which mimics that found in nature, produces a natural balance that both improves the health of the crops and also maintains a number of beneficial plant, animaland insect species.This therefore reduces the need for chemical inputs such as pesticides and herbicides. Production for the global market, on the other hand, effectively precludes diversity as the requirements of a global marketing system are large quantities of standardised products.This has led to a type of agriculture that is highly specialised, producing only a few varieties of crops in huge monocultural fields. Wildlife is systematically excluded from industrial farms, adding to the destruction of habitats. The lack of diversity on these farms creates an unstable and unhealthy environment for the plants. This leads to an increase in pests and diseases, which in a monoculture can produce devastating effects, ruining entire crops. Industrial farms therefore rely on inputs such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides to address this problem. These chemicals have devastating environmental impacts. Not only do they pollute our food and water supplies, but they kill many more species of plant and insect species than the ones they target. This destroys the surrounding ecosystems and results in enormous biodiversity loss. As pests and diseases develop resistance to these chemicals, larger and stronger doses of chemicals must be introduced and the result is a vicious circle creating super pests and an ever more toxic mixture of chemicals in our food. Industrial farms also rely on heavy use of artificial fertilisers to help their crops grow to the standardised size required by the market. Smaller scale, more diversified farms by contrast feed the soil by using compost and other organic matter from the farm, not only reducing the need for chemicals but also adding to the soil structure and fertility. The global food system as it is today is clearly unsustainable from the vast amounts of CO2 produced by unnecessary processing, packaging and transportation to the intensive use of poisonous chemicals on our food, it is clear that we need to reassess the entire food system to reduce the negative impact on the natural environment and on our health. Local food systems have the ability not only to minimise this damage, but to regenerate and renew the natural landscape and our own health
