“Conventional food travels an average of 1,250 miles before getting to its final destination. So why does anyone fly in food – sometimes from half a world away – and use up all that fuel when they can get lettuce or goat cheese from the next county over?”
Read the entire article at American University Radio: Is Local Better When It Comes To Our Food?.
Rate this article: 
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading...
“We find that although food is transported long distances in general the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase,83% of the average U.S.household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption.Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%.”
Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories
from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.
I have also heard that a very large % of total energy consumed comes from the shopper’s drive to and from the grocery store. Given this, I think any food localization efforts should also focus on food transport issues, eating lower on the food chain, and NOT driving to the grocery store…
Source: (peer-reviewed article)
(http://psufoodscience.typepad.com/psu_food_science/files/es702969f.pdf)
What this article is alluding to is the Principle of Comparative Advantage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage