Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
have all helped to maintain a very different approach.
Farmers markets
, which have
been described in Chap. 4, also have the additional advantage of providing a local
outlet to encourage farmers and smallholders to increase the variety of crops they
can grow and which could be consumed locally. The development of a Local Food
Directory in many Transition Towns also provide informative guides to local prod-
ucts as well as to restaurants where such local foods and preparation form a key part
of the cuisine. All these trends mean that the Transition Town movement has given a
stimulus to the idea that more food can and should be grown locally, and these ideas
have been spreading to towns and communities that are not part of the formal move-
ment. It also helps the development of what can be called the
niche production of
local goods
that was described previously, those uniquely associated with local area
and which can become part of a new local cuisine, like the older ones so famous in
many rural French towns.
Support for the idea of a more localized production initially came from the idea
of
food miles
, which identified the distance that food had travelled from production
to sales sites. The large food miles travelled from many food sources was seen as
demonstrating the increasing transport costs, energy use, transport emissions and
hence lower sustainability of these long distance inputs. It led some to advocate the
need for a more local diet, the so-called
locavores
, with some trying to restrict their
food intake to within a 100 mile radius from their homes, a difficult feat in many
climates. Despite the initial attractiveness of the indicator it has been shown to be
flawed. It led James McWilliams (
2009
) of Texas State University in his topic
Just
Food: Where Locavores get it Wrong and How we can Truly eat Responsibly
to
stress that a full accounting of environmental impacts must also take into account
all the inputs of energy, water, fertiliser etc., in producing these goods, not only in
terms of their costs, but the energy expended in the production of these inputs and
the carbon dioxide generation. Transport costs in bringing the food to any location
are only part of the costs involved, often less than 10 %. Such audits have shown
that locally produced food may come at a higher cost in environmental impact than
long distance supplies. One of the most comprehensive studies of this issue was car-
ried out by researchers at New Zealand's Lincoln University (Saunders et al.
2006
).
It showed the comparative ecological advantages in food production, specifically in
importing lamb from that country compared to production from Britain. The total
energy used to produce an equivalent amount of lamb in New Zealand's more be-
nign climate compared to Britain was four times less, while carbon dioxide output
was lower by a similar amount because of the need for such things as heated pens
and higher feed costs in Britain. The advantage was also seen in other products,
as the energy expenditure figures for total production in Britain, including transit,
were twice as much for dairy products, and 60 % more for apples, despite the 18,000
miles between the two countries that incur substantial transport costs. Pierre Des-
rochers at the University of Toronto's Geography Department has been a vigorous
advocate of what amounts to the theory of comparative advantage in agricultural
products, claiming that the more efficient and environmentally appropriate way of
sourcing goods is to find the cheapest source in the best climatic area, subject to
the need to avoid exploitation of local labour or the environment, for large capacity
