Interesting article in our newspaper this morning about air miles and
environmental impact. I can see both sides of the argument however it does
show hom simplistic simply gauging things by food miles is. A far better
determinant is total energy consumption or environmental footprint from
ground to market. That provides an overall assessment. Will be difficult to
develop a comprehensive calculation I reckon. This is not to say that
efforts should not be made in calculating the environmental impact of food,
more that a robust system needs to be developed before dignificant actions
be taken.
rob

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/s...451695&ref=rss

In floppy hats and gumboots, Kenya's Kikuyu farmers are preparing for war
with Britain. There isn't an AK-47 in sight, though there are plenty of
organic cucumbers, carrots, french beans and cauliflowers.

It's a battle over who is to blame for climate change - poor African farmers
who export their produce by air, or Western consumers who care about the
environmental impact of "food miles".

"Who emits more greenhouse gases?" asks Charles Kimani among his avocado
trees. "A Kenyan or a Briton?" The average Briton emits 30 times more carbon
than a Kenyan, according to World Bank figures - or 9.4 tonnes of CO2
compared with 0.3 tonnes.

Behind the furore is the proposal by the UK's Soil Association, which
campaigns for organic food, organic farming and sustainable forestry to ban
imports of organic produce from poor countries such as Kenya because of
their food miles - the carbon emitted by air transport.

Starting with a debate in London tomorrow, the SA will hear views on the
issue until September, when it may decide to introduce a limited or total
ban. A ban would mean labelling air-freighted products so that they
effectively lost their organic status due to their food miles. Such a move
would destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands of smallholders across
Africa in one of the continent's most enterprising export industries,
forcing them back into poverty and subsistence farming.


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Advertisement"A ban on our export market will be death for us," says Mr
Kimani, who has put his children through school and college from the profits
made from fruit and vegetables on just three hectares of land.

Organic produce is the fastest-growth area of Africa's horticultural
industry, with cut flowers and other high-value products like dried herbs
and essential oils. In Kenya, where two-thirds of people live on less than
$1 a day, horticulture is the largest export earner after tourism.

The story is much the same in Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania.

A chain of other industries from packaging to transport firms also rely on
horticulture, so the knock-on effect would hurt millions of jobs across the
region.

The food miles debate deepens the scepticism that many Africans already have
towards Western rhetoric about ending poverty in the continent. Most farmers
in upcountry Kenyan areas such as Kiambu do not look to increased aid as the
way out of poverty. Devout Christians with a tradition of hard work and
self-help, Kikuyu farmers see wealth coming from access to lucrative Western
markets.


"The SA proposal is just another non-tariff barrier to trade among the many
that already exist," says Eustace Kiarii, chief of an organisation
representing Kenyan organic farmers. Farmers from Kenya and developing
countries are not asking for special trade access, but to be allowed to
trade competitively."