Fair miles

Being conscious of ‘food miles’ - buying food that has taken the shortest route from farm to table - is widely seen as positive way we can reduce our carbon footprint.

We are also constantly reminding CRUX readers to think and purchase ‘fairtrade’. What impact would a boycott of, say, fresh produce grown in Africa have on the livelihoods of some of the world’s poorest people who rely on Agriculture for their income?

Growing, transporting, processing and cooking food accounts for about 20% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Buying locally grown, seasonal food from our own farmers must be applauded and seen as an attempt to cut down the carbon-calories in the food we eat.

However, buying locally-produced food only reduces the amount of fossil fuel used if the produce has been grown using similar energy efficiency to food from somewhere else. If the local producer has used fossil fuel to heat greenhouses and used artificial fertilizers, when the alternative produce has been grown ‘under the African sun’, the overall emissions could be much higher, even after taking transport into account.

A DEFRA study has shown that locally grown tomatoes from heated glass houses were responsible for three times the CO² emissions as similar fruit grown outdoors in Spain and trucked across Europe.

Airfreight is widely thought to be a method of transporting food which is particularly bad for the environment. It uses twice as much energy per ton as road freight. But remember! Most of the fresh fruit and vegetables, and virtually all of Kenya’s ‘fairtrade’ flowers, that are air-freighted to the UK, travel in the holds of passenger planes, which are going to continue flying anyway!

Action points

  • Continue to support farmers in the developing world by buying their produce – especially fairtrade.
  • When buying locally, try to buy seasonally too!
  • Visit local farmers’ markets and talk to the people who sell their produce – find out as much as you can about their farming methods and animal welfare.
  • Walk to the shops. If you have to take the car, try to reduce the number of journeys you make!
  • Eat more fresh food, and cut down on the fossil fuel associated with lots of cooking!
  • Grow some of your own food – if you don’t have a garden, consider sharing n allotment with your friends – or start a community garden similar to the one behind St Peter’s in Manchester Road, Bury!


This brief introduction has been taken from several pamphlets produced by The Co-operative College here in Manchester. For more info see www.fairandsquare.coop.