The downside of eating local

   Australian Farm Institute Executive Director Mick Keogh says the international local food movement brings the potential for a retreat from globalised agricultural markets.

   Unwittingly the local food movement also has the potential to dramatically increase agriculture’s impact on the environment, he says.

   A ‘locavore’ is defined as a person who seeks to only consume food that is grown less than 160 km away. More generally, the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill, defines local food as produced and consumed within a state, or that is consumed less than 640 km from where it is produced.

   “Irrespective of the validity of the reasons advanced for preferring local food, the movement seems to encompass a strong desire to retreat from the globalised, internationally traded food supply system,” Keogh says.

   One often-claimed attribute of local food systems that is not supported by available research is the claim that local food systems are better for the environment.

   “A UK consumer opting for the local UK dairy product would unwittingly be selecting a product that has double the energy and environmental footprint of the competing New Zealand product, despite the New Zealand product having been transported almost 18,000 kilometres,” Keogh says.

    A comparison for lamb production, he says, shows the New Zealand lamb shipped to the UK had an emission “footprint” of 688 kilograms of CO2-e per tonne of lamb compared to the UK product with an emission footprint of 2,850 kg of CO2-e.

   Keogh says a further aspect of the local food movement that is seemingly at odds with many perceptions is the implications of a ‘local food’ model for the potential of global agriculture to provide sufficient food for a larger future population.

   “It is also easy to overlook the fact that the benefits of specialisation (growing specific crops in areas where they are agronomically best suited and transporting them to distant markets), modern science and scale economies mean that the world is now consistently able to produce a surplus of food, which can be safely and efficiently delivered to any location on earth in a relatively short period of time,” he says.

   A recent estimate says for the United States to maintain current output levels for 40 major food crops and vegetables under a locavore-like production system would require an additional 24.3 million hectares of cropland, 2.45 million tonnes more fertiliser, and 22.7 million kg more chemicals.

   “The result would be a profound increase in the carbon and energy footprint of the U.S. food system, and the destruction of significant natural habitat due to land use change,” Keogh says.