Use tax breaks to cut food miles
10 December 2001
‘Use tax breaks to cut food miles’
By Isabel Davies
TAX incentives should be used to encourage more people to buy food from local suppliers, according to a farming and environmental group.
Sustain, a group campaigning for better food and farming, says much food travels thousands of miles before it ends up on peoples plates.
More energy is used transporting food around the world than is got out of it in the form of food calories, says a Sustain report.
For example, every calorie of iceberg lettuce, flown in from Los Angeles, uses 127 calories of fuel to get it to the UK.
The report – Eating Oil – Food in a changing Climate – says the trade in food is increasing faster than the worlds population and food production.
Between 1968 and 1998, world food production increased by 84%, population by 91% and food trade by 184%.
A recent survey by the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy estimated UK imports of food products and animal feed use about 1.6 billion litres of fuel.
The report questions the logic of a modern food system which sees food imported and exported all around the world.
“Rather than importing what they cannot produce themselves, many countries appear to be simply swapping food,” it says.
This, it claims, has consequences for climate change, food security and increased incidence and spread of disease.
The report claims that the government appears to hold two mutually incompatible positions.
It claims to be committed to a sustainable food and farming system, but it is also in favour of globalisation and free trade, so cannot promote the former.
Developing a sustainable food system should become a major policy based on setting targets for things like local sourcing of food, the report says.
Alternatively, it suggests the farming and food sector could voluntarily opt to steadily increase the proportion of local produce they buy and sell.
A labelling system could also be introduced to give shoppers an indication of the environmental impact transporting a food product has had.