The Cost of Cheap Food
Lee K
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/25/business/food.php
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Friday, April 25, 2008
ROME: Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets,
then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket
shelves on the Spanish Citrus Coast as local lemons rot on the ground. Half
of the peas in Europe are grown and packaged in Kenya.
In the United States, FreshDirect.com proclaims kiwi season has expanded to
"All year!" now that Italy has become the world's leading supplier of the
national fruit of New Zealand, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere's
winter.
Food has moved around the world since Europeans discovered tea in China, but
never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years.
Consumers in not only the richest nations but also, increasingly, the
developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to
season or geography.
Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring
food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. And
the penetration of megamarkets in nations from China to Mexico with supply
and distribution chains that gird the globe - like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and
Tesco - has accelerated the trend.
But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution, especially carbon dioxide,
from transporting the food.
Under longstanding trade agreements, fuel for international freight carried
by sea and air is not taxed. Now, many economists, environmentalists and
politicians say it is time to make shippers and shoppers pay for the
pollution, through taxes or other measures.
"We're shifting goods around the world in a way that looks really bizarre,"
said Paul Watkiss, an Oxford University economist who wrote a recent
European Union report on food imports. He noted that Britain, for example,
imports - and exports - 15,000 tons of waffles, and similarly exchanges 20
tons of bottled water with Australia.
More important, Watkiss said, "we are not paying the environmental cost of
all that travel."
Europe is poised to change that. The European Commission announced this year
that all freight-carrying flights into and out of Europe would be included
in the European emissions trading program by 2012, meaning that permits will
have to be purchased for the pollution they generate.
The commission, the EU's executive arm, is negotiating with the global
shipping organization, the International Maritime Organization, over a tax
or other plan to reduce greenhouse gases. If there is no solution by
yearend, sea freight will eventually be included in the emissions trading
program, too, said Barbara Helferrich, spokesman for the European Commission
Environment Directorate.
"We're really ready to have everyone reduce - or pay in some way," she said.
The European Union, the world's leading food importer, has increased imports
20 percent in the last five years. The value of fresh fruit and vegetables
imported by the United States, in second place, nearly doubled between 2000
and 2006.
Under a little known international treaty called the Convention on
International Civil Aviation, signed in Chicago in 1944 to help the
fledgling airline industry, fuel for international travel and transport of
goods, including food, is exempt from taxes levied on fuel for trucks, cars
and buses. There is also no tax on fuel used by ocean freighters.
Proponents say ending these breaks could help ensure that producers and
consumers pay the environmental cost of increasingly well-traveled food.
The food and transport industries say the issue is more complicated. The
debate has put some companies on the defensive, including Tesco, the largest
British supermarket chain, known as a vocal promoter of green initiatives.
Some of those companies say that they are working to limit greenhouse gases
produced by their businesses but that the question is how to do it. They
oppose regulation and new taxes and, partly in an effort to head them off,
are advocating consumer education instead. Tesco, for instance, is
introducing a labeling system that will let consumers assess a product's
carbon footprint.
"This may be as radical for environmental consuming as putting a calorie
count on the side of packages to help people who want to lose weight," said
Trevor Datson, a spokesman for Tesco.
Some foods that travel long distances may actually have an environmental
advantage over local products, like flowers grown in the tropics instead of
in energy-hungry northern greenhouses.
Better transportation networks have sharply reduced the time required to
ship food abroad. For instance, better roads in Africa have helped cut the
time it takes for goods to go from farms on that continent to stores in
Europe to 4 days from 10 in recent years.
And with far cheaper labor costs in African nations, Morocco and Egypt have
displaced Spain in just a few seasons as important suppliers of tomatoes and
salad greens to central Europe.
"If there's an opportunity for cheaper production in terms of logistics or
supply it will be taken," said Ed Moorehouse, a consultant to the food
industry in London, adding that some of these shifts also create valuable
jobs in the developing world.
The economics are compelling. For example, Norwegian cod costs a
manufacturer about $2.99 a kilogram, or $1.36 a pound, to process in Europe,
but only 50 cents a kilogram, to process in Asia.
The ability to transport food cheaply has given rise to new and booming
businesses.
"In the past few years there have been new plantations all over the center
of Italy," said Antonio Baglioni, export manager of Apofruit, a major
Italian kiwi exporter.
Kiwis from Sanifrutta, another Italian exporter, travel by sea in
refrigerated containers: 18 days to the United States, 28 to South Africa
and more than a month to reach New Zealand.
Some studies have calculated that as little as 3 percent of emissions from
the food sector are caused by transportation. But Watkiss, the Oxford
economist, said the percentage was growing rapidly. Moreover, imported foods
generate more emissions than generally acknowledged because they require
layers of packaging and, in the case of perishable food, refrigeration.
Britain, with its short growing season and powerful supermarket chains,
imports 95 percent of its fruit and more than half of its vegetables. Food
accounts for 25 percent of truck shipments in Britain, according to the
British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Datson, the Tesco spokesman, acknowledged that there were environmental
consequences to the increased distances food travels, but he said his
company was merely responding to consumer appetites.
"The offer and range has been growing because our customers want things like
snap peas year-round," Datson said. "We don't see our job as consumer choice
editing."
Global supermarket chains like Tesco and Carrefour, spreading throughout
Eastern Europe and Asia, cater to a market for convenience foods, like
washed lettuce and cut vegetables, as well as global brands.
Pringles potato chips, for example, are sold in more than 180 countries,
though they are manufactured in only a handful of places, said Kay Puryear,
a spokesman for Procter & Gamble, which makes Pringles. A Pringles plant in
Tennessee, for example, ships to 80 countries, including Japan.
China, whose traditional cuisine rarely uses potatoes, is now the world's
biggest potato producer.
Proponents of taxing transportation fuel say it would end such uses by
changing the economic calculus.
"Food is traveling because transport has become so cheap in a world of
globalization," said Frederic Hague, head of the Norwegian environmental
group Bellona. "If it was just a matter of processing fish cheaper in China,
I'd be happy with it traveling there. The problem is pollution."
The European Union has led the world in proposals to incorporate
environmental costs into the price consumers pay for food at the market.
Switzerland, which does not belong to the EU, already taxes trucks that
cross its borders.
In addition to bringing airlines under its emission-trading scheme, the
European Commission is also considering a freight charge specifically tied
to the environmental toll of food travel to shift the current calculus that
"transporting freight is cheaper than producing goods locally."
The problem is measuring those emissions. The fact that food travels farther
does not necessarily mean more energy is used. Some studies have shown that
shipping fresh apples, onions and lamb from New Zealand might produce lower
emissions than producing the goods in Europe, where for example, storing
apples for months would require refrigeration.
But those studies were done in New Zealand, and the food travel debate is
inevitably intertwined with economic interests.
Last month, Tony Burke, the Australian minister for agriculture, fisheries
and forestry, said carbon footprinting and labeling food miles - the
distance food has traveled - is "nothing more than protectionism."
Shippers have vigorously fought the idea of levying a transportation fuel
tax, noting that if some countries repealed those provisions of the Chicago
Convention, it would wreak havoc with global trade, creating an uneven
patchwork of fuel taxes.
It would also give countries that kept the exemption a huge trade advantage.
Some European retailers hope that voluntary green measures like Tesco's
labeling, which is set to begin this year, will slow the momentum for new
taxes and regulations.
The company will begin testing the labeling system, starting with products
like orange juice and laundry detergent. Customers may be surprised by what
they discover.
Box Fresh Organics, a popular British brand, for example, advertises that 85
percent of its vegetables come from the British Midlands. But in winter, in
its standard basket, only the potatoes and carrots are grown in Britain. The
grapes are from South Africa, the fennel is from Spain and the squash is
from Italy.
Retailers today could not survive if they failed to offer such variety, said
Moorehouse, the British food consultant.
"Unfortunately," he said, "we've educated our customers to expect cheap
food, that they can go to the market to get whatever they want, whenever
they want it. All year. 24/7."
Al Bundy
> Putting pollution on grocery billshttp://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/25/business/food.php
> By Elisabeth Rosenthal
>
> Friday, April 25, 2008
> ROME: Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets,
> then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket
> shelves on the Spanish Citrus Coast as local lemons rot on the ground. Half
> of the peas in Europe are grown and packaged in Kenya.
>
>
jars. When I saw where it came from I put it back on the shelf. I just
don't trust food from China. Some nutritionists have said the best
thing to do is eat locally grown products. That can't be done easily,
but at least we can buy mostly from this country. My local fruit
market has stock all year long. Out of season locally items come from
Florida, Mexico or South America.
I need to homestead a farm.
AllEmailDeletedImmediately
"Al Bundy" <MSfo...@mcpmail.com> wrote in message
news:13c99e6b-6934-4608...@m1g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
> Dollar Tree has recently been selling fruit from China mostly in glass
> jars. When I saw where it came from I put it back on the shelf. I just
> don't trust food from China. Some nutritionists have said the best
> thing to do is eat locally grown products. That can't be done easily,
> but at least we can buy mostly from this country. My local fruit
> market has stock all year long. Out of season locally items come from
> Florida, Mexico or South America.
> I need to homestead a farm.
me too, al. :(
----------------------
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice
cannot sleep forever."--Thomas Jefferson
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide
everything." -- Josef V. Stalin
www.myspace.com/bodybuildinggranny
heavy on the country music. if you don't like country, scroll down for
some surprises.
but at least start the songs: some are funny and some aren't at all.
h
> jars. When I saw where it came from I put it back on the shelf. I just
> don't trust food from China. Some nutritionists have said the best
> thing to do is eat locally grown products. That can't be done easily,
> but at least we can buy mostly from this country. My local fruit
> market has stock all year long. Out of season locally items come from
> Florida, Mexico or South America.
> I need to homestead a farm.
Agreed. We don't eat any sort of packaged, pre-made foods. We try to only
eat locally grown produce dairy, and meat, which is difficult in upstate NY
with such a short growing season. Since we don't eat grains that's not an
issue, but all our fruit and veg comes from the local farm stand, and you
can see them picking the stuff outside. I buy lots when it's in season, then
freeze it, can it, etc. for the winter. All the meat comes from the abattoir
that gets the animals from a local farm (same place as the dairy), and the
gigantic chicken breasts at the local market come straight from the poultry
farm 10 miles away. The weird thing is that while the produce costs a bit
more than the stuff at Wal-Mart, the meat and poultry is MUCH less than they
charge. I can get a whole side of ribeye cut into 2" thick steaks for
$4.98lb and boneless, skinless chicken breasts (the size of pterodactyls)
for $1.98lb. Pork is about the same as the chains. The pigs are raised about
50 miles away, so that probably accounts for the higher price. The sheep
farm (they mostly sell wool but have lambs available once a year) is about a
half hour drive and you can buy a whole lamb already dressed and wrapped.
The chains around here don't even carry lamb except for a week at Easter.
We've always eaten locally grown stuff, but we used to use commercial cat
food. Both my cats were poisoned last March, but after a week at the vet and
$3,000 they both recovered. I make their food now. I won't buy anything
ingestible that's made in China.
hchi...@hotmail.com
<der...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Al Bundy" <MSfo...@mcpmail.com> wrote in message
>news:13c99e6b-6934-4608...@m1g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
>
>> Dollar Tree has recently been selling fruit from China mostly in glass
>> jars. When I saw where it came from I put it back on the shelf. I just
>> don't trust food from China. Some nutritionists have said the best
>> thing to do is eat locally grown products. That can't be done easily,
>> but at least we can buy mostly from this country. My local fruit
>> market has stock all year long. Out of season locally items come from
>> Florida, Mexico or South America.
>> I need to homestead a farm.
>
>
>
>me too, al. :(
You all are welcome to come work in our garden. :)
Dawn
>
>
>You all are welcome to come work in our garden. :)
Well I would love to Harry, but I'll be working in my own.
Dawn, who thinks that the garden is going in next weekend.