An op-ed in the New York Times illustrates why those concerned about energy use and “sustainability” should not be concerned about farms and being locavores, but about households energy usage
Overall, transportation accounts for about 14 percent of the total energy consumed by the American food system.
Other favorite targets of sustainability advocates include the fertilizers and chemicals used in modern farming. But their share of the food system’s energy use is even lower, about 8 percent.
The real energy hog, it turns out, is not industrial agriculture at all, but you and me. Home preparation and storage account for 32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far.
Driving to a nearby Walmart to buy factory foods may be more environmentally sound if it saves you a car trip because you’re going there anyway, or if it’s closer than wherever it is you buy local food. I don’t know if anyone has quantified the extent to which big boxes have helped the environment by allowing one-stop shopping, but it seems it would be significant.
And it sounds like foodies should be focusing on which ways to prepare food conserve the most energy. Is microwaving your food the most environmentally friendly thing you can do? Clearly, locavores and greens are focusing on the wrong part of the food production chain to wring energy savings out of. The urban farmer/locavore/foodie aesthetic is a high status one though; the Walmart shopper/microwaver is not.
The piece closes with this paragraph which I will second and should be repeated to urban farmers everywhere:
The best way to make the most of these truly precious resources of land, favorable climates and human labor is to grow lettuce, oranges, wheat, peppers, bananas, whatever, in the places where they grow best and with the most efficient technologies — and then pay the relatively tiny energy cost to get them to market, as we do with every other commodity in the economy. Sometimes that means growing vegetables in your backyard. Sometimes that means buying vegetables grown in California or Costa Rica.
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Saturday ~ September 4th, 2010 at 12:23 am
David Sucher
I too read that op-ed and I’d like to believe it (I live in Seattle and I like oranges and avocados), but his numbers are non-existent.
He asserts everything and proves nothing.
Where is his analysis?
Sunday ~ February 6th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
TequilaKid
To Sucher: Who’s is “he”? The Times author or Ozimek?
To Ozimek; If I could rely on market prices to reflect real costs to the environment and costs to evertyyhing else, I wouldn’t have to think about saving energy at all. I’d just buy the cheapest merchandise. That’s because the market did all my thnking for me. But I understand that Exxon and other oil producers pay no income tax in the US, and they don’t cover the costs of fuel production production because they don’t pay for our petroleum wars. So although your recipe sounds like eminent common sense, the price system is so distorted by monopoly power and other influences that it cannot be relied upon as a guide to the real cost of merchandise.
Thursday ~ September 30th, 2010 at 9:12 am
Essie
You are assuming we’re all driving for all of our shopping trips. if we are choosing between one-stop shopping by driving to Walmart or multi-stop shopping at many little stores, then yes you have a point. but many of us shop farmers markets, etc on our bikes or on foot, on our lunch breaks, then ride the bike or take transit home. We can only do this because we live in dense enough cities that allow us to do lots of errands without ever getting into a car. Big box might make sense for exurbs but not for cities.
Also, locavores are growing more and more of their own food with seeds they’ve saved from the previous year, which has zero transportation impact. they are also composting more b/c that helps their crops and cuts out the need for fertilizer/soil condition as well as reduced the trash collection burden.