Reducing Food Miles by Growing Your Own
There are many reasons to grow food at home, with a major one being to reduce your carbon footprint. Did you know that 3 billion tons of CO2-equivalent emissions are produced in one year globally from the transportation of food? That’s 6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (as found in this study in the Nature Food journal in 2017). When food miles were added to emissions from land use, production and methane from cattle, about 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food production!
These are some scary figures, but what can we do as individuals and households to reduce our impact? There are many things you can do, but one of the best is to grow your own food of course! Growing your own food at home, eating locally and building community resilience and food security is what Grow and Eat It is all about.
What are Food Miles?
Food miles are a calculation of the transport distance that food products travel between production and consumption. The below infographic from The Milking Parlour, is an excellent visual representation:
As you can see, if you grow your own food, there are 0 food miles between production (your garden) and your plate. However, if you shop at the major supermarkets there are multiple steps, including multiple transport steps, that are needed to get the food to your home. Each mile (or kilometre as we say in Australia) of these transport steps are the food miles.
Each food mile produces carbon equivalent emissions, that contribute to your carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions.
If you’re reading this article, and thinking about growing your own food, we’re sure that’s something you’d like to avoid!
Shorten your Supply Chain, Grow your own Food
There are many direct, and indirect benefits to you and the environment from growing food in your backyard or growing space.
Firstly, and most obviously there are zero food miles. Excluding meat (which produces 2.8 billion tons of carbon emissions globally), as it’s mostly unfeasible to produce your own meat for most urban dwellers, the same study found that fruit and vegetables still contribute 1.06 billion tons of carbon emissions from food miles, just before cereals and flour. You can make a real difference by reducing that with your gardening.
Harvesting fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden eliminates all packaging that is commonly wrapped around supermarket food, reducing the emissions and plastic involved in creating and disposing of it.
Growing organically keeps the world’s waterways clean and flowing, reducing the irrigation demand on natural water sources and the chemical load of fertilisers and pesticides entering our ecological systems generated from factory agricultural practices.
Growing your soil, another topic altogether, can also ensure that your garden acts as a carbon sink, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere! Composting, adding biochar to the soil (like Charlie Charcoal in Western Australia) and promoting a healthy soil microbiome all aid in this.
Where should I Buy my Food
Unless you live on an acreage or in an ecovillage, you will have to buy some or most of your food to supplement what you are growing. With the knowledge of food miles in mind, you can also take the following steps to reduce your carbon footprint:
Limit or cut-out meat and dairy, and if you can’t bring yourself to do that, then avoid beef and lamb, opting for chicken or pork.
Avoiding air-freighted products is the biggest impact step you can take. There’s a good chance goods have been air-freighted if they are highly perishable, like avocados, green beans and berries, and they are not grown locally or within country.
Eat locally, shop at the farmers markets, or via the growing number of farmer direct food boxes (such as DirtyCleanFood.com.au in Perth or CountryMeatsDirect.com.au over in the Eastern States)
Eat seasonally, again if you’re eating what is in season in your region you’re probably eating locally.
Compost your waste. Food waste also contributes a large amount of carbon emissions, as seen on ABC’s War on Waste.
In summary, the world needs to work together to reduce carbon emissions quickly. There are many benefits to individuals, communities and the world as a whole to having households grow some of their own food and reducing food miles is a big one. If you would like some insight into your carbon footprint, including from your diet and lifestyle choices, check out the Carbon Positive Australia Carbon Footprint Calculator. Maybe it’ll give you the push you need to start growing some fruit and vegetables in your garden today!
Grow and Eat It is developing a solution to help automate your garden planning and maintenance, helping anyone at any stage of their gardening journey, grow their own food. If you’d like to take part in the first release, please subscribe for updates below.