War of Words

There continues to be a battle for the hearts. minds but especially the pocketbooks of consumers in the U.K. over the issue of food miles and "carbon footprint." In this article, Kenyan vegetable exporters accuse some U.K. consumers of backstabbing them over the issue.
From The Nation:

Customers of Tesco and Marks & Spencer who pick up a pack of fresh, green, healthy looking beans (most of which is grown in Kenya) will soon be faced with an aeroplane symbol, telling them that the vegetable has been transported by air to the supermarket.
Ambitious strategies unveiled in January by Tesco, the biggest British retailer, and Marks & Spencer both promise to ramp up locally sourced food and cut down on imports, as one of a packet of measures to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.
Neither firm has offered much detail on when or how they will switch from imports to locally produced food. But their goals will support the growing trend for counting "food miles", a somewhat misleading indicator of pollution that could do significant harm to Kenyan horticultural exports.
First coined in the early 1990s, food miles is narrowly defined as the distance travelled by a food product from its source to the consumer's plate. The longer the distance, the more pollution caused by the food while in transit - a combination of the fuel emissions, and packaging and technology required to keep the food fresh.
Professor Gareth Edward Jones from the University of Wales who is leading a government-funded study into the advantages and disadvantages of consuming locally produced vegetables compared with vegetables from overseas, says transport is only a small part of food's total carbon budget. Where and how vegetables are grown also counts.
"Making fertiliser is a hugely intensive process. Africa doesn't use much fertiliser compared to Europe as it typically uses organic sources," he points out.
Some studies suggest that growing vegetables in a greenhouse could be more harmful than the gases emitted by transport to and from Africa. But the real problem area is much closer to home, says Professor Edwards-Jones.
"Food use in the home - how you cook it, and store it (in a fridge or freezer) - is a much more important share of the energy consumed," he says. "But when we tell this to people in Britain they get very upset. And for the media, conveying the message to get a more efficient cooker or fridge is a boring one."
"Buy local", on the other hand, carries much more sway in a country that has seen income and jobs in its agricultural sector in steady decline.
Professor Edwards-Jones is convinced that recent calls for local sourcing and support for local fresh produce is more about backing the nation's farmers than any environmental concerns.
Professor Edwards-Jones puts it differently: "About 10 per cent of consumers are what I call 'food agitators', or those that are consistently concerned about ethics. They will put pressure on retailers to improve their carbon footprint. The retailers follow these agitators, not the 90 per cent who don't care."
"Food miles is such an emotive issue and unfortunately I think food miles will come out on top, even though it is based on misleading information."

TK: I think Professor Jones makes some good points. How consumers use electricity in their home - note Al Gore's $1,200 monthly electric bill - may have a greater "carbon footprint" effect than food miles. And I do see how that food miles can be seen as a non-tariff trade barrier by exporters in Kenya, New Zealand, Chile and everywhere else where exports are important.