Food miles - check the odometer

This UPI food writer defends the concept of buying local and why "food miles" are important, but she acknowledges the arguments against being enslaved to the notion at the same time.
Julia Watson writes, "Their case (opponents to the moral superiority of food miles) goes that packing a massive supermarket container truck to the brim with supplies uses a lot less gas than a small farmer's SUV or family vehicle, which can only carry a limited amount of produce."
There are more environmental considerations that run counter to local produce, she admitted. The amount of pollution generated by an airplane or truck importing tomatoes from a warm climate must be weighed against the cost of maintaining a greenhouse climate in a local but chilly region.

In the end, Watson said consumers should urge retailers to buy local produce. She also makes this statement, if unsupported by fact. "With food grown locally, we should be able to protect ourselves better from the kind of bacteria outbreaks that affected people across the nation last year eating mass-farmed supplies of West Coast-grown spinach that had traveled hundreds of miles." Watson also concludes buying local will result in a better grip on "food security."

The notion to buy local produce may be a powerful consumer trend, and should be respected in that context. But the road of reason created to support buying decisions based on food miles is full of potholes.

Meanwhile, this take on the ethanol demand for corn raises the alarm that so many ethanol plants are being built that half the country's corn will be used for ethanol by 2008. Because that could create much higher costs for food, some are calling for a freeze on the construction of new plants until possible repercussions are studied.