Farm to fork: cutting carbon from food transport

by Helen Rimmer, Friends of the Earth

Helen Rimmer is a Friends of the Earth campaigner, dividing her time between campaigning about sustainable food and farming on a national basis and acting as the key North West FOE campaigner. She has a background in sustainable development and latterly food and farming policy, and is also active in the Manchester and Central Lancashire local Friends of the Earth groups. She has written this article specifically for the North West Transport Roundtable website.

The distance our food travels from farm to fork has grown dramatically in recent decades - with the average number of miles food travels doubling in the past thirty years[1]. Our food system has become increasingly globalised while local food infrastructure - the different parts of the chain comprising production, processing, transportation and retail - has been steadily eroded.

According to a major EU study, food - through its production, distribution and consumption - is the average UK households' single largest contributor to climate change[2]. Cheap oil has driven the industrialisation of food production and encouraged the transportation of food across the globe to reach the consumer. And in the UK, planning rules intended to curb out-of-town retail expansion have had little impact with food shopping becoming increasingly reliant on the car. The significant carbon cost of transporting our food is largely ignored by those with the power to change the food system and re-localise food and farming.

The term 'food miles' has come under some critique for over-simplifying the emissions impact of transportation compared to other parts of the food chain. For example the carbon intensity of heating greenhouses for out-of-season production of fruit and vegetables in the UK may be higher than importing by road freight from hotter European climes. But concerns over the negative impacts of food transport do remain valid.

Studies for Defra have put the external cost of food transport at between #1.9 billion and #4 billion a year, with social costs from congestion, accidents, greenhouse gas emissions, air and noise pollution, and infrastructure wear and tear[3]. The majority of emissions from food transport - 45 per cent - are from road freight, but freighting by air is recognised as a hotspot and its impact is growing[4]. Air freight currently accounts for 11 per cent of the food industry's transport emissions despite only carrying 1 per cent of the food and making up just 0.1 per cent of the food miles[5].

Economic development, land use and planning policies have encouraged a move to out-of-town retail at the expense of town centres. Three quarters of new supermarket development between 1999 and 2005 was out of town[6]. People are travelling further to buy their food as the supermarkets have taken trade from local shops, many of which have had no choice but to close. Between 1992 and 2005, urban food vehicle-kilometres (km) increased by 27 per cent, due largely to the increase in shopping for food by car, which accounts for almost half of all UK food vehicle-km[7]. Around one in ten car journeys are now made for food shopping[8].

So what needs to be done to cut the carbon cost of food transport and ensure the food sector plays its part in reducing our emissions by 80% by 2050? The coalition Government's new planning framework must strengthen the town centre first principle with a qualified presumption against out-of-town development. A greater emphasis on reducing dependency on access by car is needed. Shopping, as with other town centre facilities, needs to be accessible by public transport, walking and cycling. Accessibility must be a key consideration in allocating sites in development plans to address the need for reduced reliance on the car, to cut congestion and emissions, and to tackle social exclusion. Locating day to day facilities such as local shops close to where people live will help cut unnecessary car journeys, meet the needs of those unable to use a car and reduce 'food deserts'.

Food and agriculture policy must reverse the trends of recent years, partly fuelled by the direction of European agricultural payments, which has meant a loss of local food infrastructure and resulted in a complicated and expanding web of distribution chains. In the livestock sector for example, there has been a significant loss of local abattoirs and mills for producing feed - resulting in animals having to travel further for slaughter, and a reduction in local feed that means we rely more and more on imports of rainforest-destroying soy from South America. Friends of the Earth's Food Chain campaign is calling for rural development money available under the Common Agricultural Policy to be directed towards re-building local food infrastructure for meat and dairy, as part of a Sustainable Livestock Bill due to be debated in Parliament in November.

And as consumers we can all play our part in cutting the carbon cost of food by supporting local shops, eating seasonal produce and buying local produce whenever possible.

[1] Defra (2005) The validity of food miles as an indicator of sustainable development

[2] European Commission (2006) Environmental Impact of Products (EIPRO): Analysis of the life cycle environmental impacts related to the final consumption of the EU-25

[3] Lower figure estimated in Defra (2007) Reducing the external costs of domestic transportation of food; Upper figure in Defra (2005) The validity of food miles as an indicator of sustainable development

[4] Defra (2007). Food Transport Indicators to 2006 (revised): Experimental Indicators. See: http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/statnot/FoodTransportIndicatorsSN2007.pdf

[5] Defra (2005) The validity of food miles as an indicator of sustainable development.

[6] Friends of the Earth (2007) An effective Town Centre First policy: what needs to be in the new PPS6

[7] Defra (2005) The validity of food miles as an indicator of sustainable development

[8] Department for Transport (2007) Personal Travel Factsheet