Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World

The New York Times, April 26 2008

In her April 26th article, Elizabeth Rosenthal follows the path of food around the globe, and the effect of all that transport on the environment. Key points include:

• Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.
• The movable feast comes at a cost: pollution — especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas — from transporting the food.
• "We’re really ready to have everyone reduce — or pay in some way,” said Barbara Helferrich, a spokeswoman for the European Commission’s Environment Directorate.
• The European Union, the world’s leading food importer, has increased imports 20 percent in the last five years. The value of fresh fruit and vegetables imported by the United States, in second place, nearly doubled from 2000 to 2006
• Some foods that travel long distances may actually have an environmental advantage over local products, like flowers grown in the tropics instead of in energy-hungry European greenhouses.
• Britain, with its short growing season and powerful supermarket chains, imports 95 percent of its fruit and more than half of its vegetables.
• Proponents of taxing transportation fuel say it would end such distortions by changing the economic calculus.
• The problem is measuring the emissions. The fact that food travels farther does not necessarily mean more energy is used.

The New York Times

Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
April 26, 2008

Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya.

In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of New Zealand’s national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.

Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.

Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. And the penetration of mega-markets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe — like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco — has accelerated the trend.

But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution — especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas — from transporting the food.

For the complete story, please CLICK HERE.

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