“Thank you. Your order has been placed. Estimated delivery time: 45 minutes.” As you wait for your meal to arrive, you can probably watch an episode or two of Friends, take your dog for a walk, shower, or just sit and suppress your hunger. While these 45 minutes might feel like an eternity before you can greet your meal at your doorstep, this might have been one of the shortest trips that your food took to reach you.
In fact, the food in front of us travels thousands of miles across the country and maybe even around the world before it lands on our plates. If we trace every item on your plate back to where it originally came from, we will find that each item took many stops along its journey before it crossed paths with us--starting its journey on the farm where it was grown, to where the produce gets treated and preserved for “freshness,” to the factory where it is packaged, and then to the distributor to be sold at our local grocery stores. This journey described here is usually measured by the term “food miles.”
According to The Conscious Challenge, “the term 'food miles' refers to the total geographic distance food is transported between their cultivation, processing and to the consumer at the point of sale.”
It is estimated that every meal in the United States travels about 1500 miles on average to get from the farm to plate. As you look at the pizza that just arrived at your dinner table, you might also wonder how far the tomatoes from the pizza sauce on your pizza have traveled before they got to the restaurant. But why is this important?
The United States, with its large role in the interconnected web that is the global food supply chain, participates in the long-distance and large-scale transportation of food which consumes large amounts of fossil fuels. To put this “large quantity of fossil fuel” into perspective, it is estimated that we put almost 10 kcal of fossil fuel energy into sustaining the food system for every 1 kcal of energy we get from eating food.
Now, the problem is that food is being shipped at increasing rates which also means that food is shipped by a more polluting means, such as air freight, which generates up to 30 times more CO2 emissions than sea shipping.
With mass consumption of dirty energy, namely fossil fuels, these long-distance modes of transportation (i.e. boats, planes, trains, trucks) are directly pumping carbon dioxide emissions into the air. There are definitely some modes of transportation that are less polluting, such as sea shipping, but that process is much slower, which is detrimental to the demand for fresh food. Now, the problem is that food is being shipped at increasing rates which also means that food is shipped by a more polluting means, such as air freight, which generates up to 30 times more CO2 emissions than sea shipping. This hits even closer to home for those who live by interstate highways, where large trailers and trucks full of food and produce traverse up down the roads, directly releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere above residential neighborhoods, which raises its own load of public health equity issues.
With climate change, the United States’ domestic food supply chain is looking a bit weak. In 2019, a study was done that identified 9 counties in the United States as the “core counties” for the U.S. food supply. This not only means that these 9 counties import lots of food to feed their own populations, but these 9 counties are also paramount to the production and the export of food that sustains the entire country. This should be alarming since our country’s food supply chain depends on these 9 counties--7 of which are in California. This means that the U.S. food supply chain is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, especially with the recent droughts and extreme weather conditions that threaten the agriculture industry.
The transportation of food is only one of the many “food systems” that act as a “dark horse of climate change.” Food production, on the other hand, contributes to more than a quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Processes such as land clearing, deforestation, the use of fertilizers, soil tillage, and the domestication of farm animals and livestock results in harmful gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases that contribute to global warming, in which overall emissions amount to about 16 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. All the processes behind food production are also water-intensive. Water is often used as a source of energy for many factories to process the food, to clean animals and produce, and of course to cultivate crops. Some more water-intensive crops, like wheat and soybean, are also some of the most widely used products around the world.
The good news is that in order to reduce your carbon footprint in terms of food, you do not necessarily have to stop eating meat and you do not have to cut out your favorite dessert. If you have the means, try purchasing produce from local vendors. This may look like you going to the weekly farmer’s market in your town (there are lots of pros to visiting a farmer’s market beyond protecting the environment)! You can also take alternate transit modes to your local grocery stores to decrease your carbon footprint. Try biking, walking, or bussing to the stores rather than taking your car. You can also start your own mini garden in the comfort of your own home. Start by planting foods that you use commonly in the kitchen, and you can easily do so with some kitchen scraps!
One of the most important things that you can do is to start being conscious of where your food comes from. Start by checking the labels of your food for the country of origin, and if you are curious, you can use this food miles calculator to estimate how far your product has traveled. You can also learn more about the links between food and climate change by visiting this interactive article. Lastly, if you are curious about your water footprint, this interactive quiz really puts things into perspective. The first step is always awareness.
Kylie Wong is from San Lorenzo, CA, and is a third-year student studying Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. In terms of sustainability, she is interested in green technology, climate resiliency, urban planning and transportation, and environmental justice.