Book Review: 'Fair miles: Recharting the Food Miles Map'

‘Fair miles: Recharting the Food Miles Map’

A short pocketbook published by iisd (The Institute for Sustainable Development) and Oxfam.

This book introduces the idea of ‘fair miles’ as a bigger-picture-alternative to the well-loved sustainability indicator of ‘food miles’. For those of you who might not know, food miles is a concept that relates to the distance that food travels from farm to plate – for example a packet of green beans from Kenya to Sweden. The longer the food miles, the higher the carbon dioxide emissions and the greater the negative effects on the environment.

Fair-miles on the other hand is a slightly looser concept, coined by the authors. It relates to the idea that food production has effects on social, political and economic systems as well as the environment. When food is produced and traded under fair-trade conditions, these socio-political-economic effects can reap great benefits for agricultural producers. So yes, buying Kenyan beans might be bad for the environment, but it might also be very, very good for the small-holding farmer who grew them on his or her land.

The booklet considers the parallel food systems of Africa (a large produce exporter) and the UK (a large produce importer) in terms of fair miles and food miles. The authors reach some interesting findings. For example, a tomato grown in a fossil-fuelled greenhouse and consumed in the UK is not necessarily any more environmentally friendly than a tomato grown naturally in Spain and trucked to the UK. They also find that transportation of food from farm to shop does not necessarily produce more emissions than its production, trade or household use, complicating the food-miles debate further.

The most useful part of the booklet is perhaps the final section, where the authors outline some ways to ‘Eat, Think and Change towards Ethical Food Choices’.

Their recommendations for eating more sustainably are:

1. Buy from developing countries –if the product is fair trade!

2. Drive to the supermarket less

3. Waste less food

4. Cut down on Meat and Dairy – even just one day a week, every little helps!

Food miles are complex. For better or worse, reading this book ensures that the seemingly simple argument that local is always best becomes increasingly challenged. It asks an important question about our food choices - who are they best for? Essentially, the food miles vs. fair miles debate boils down to weighing up the trade-offs between environmental benefits and developmental benefits. This is the tricky part!

At the end of the day, only you can choose whether to buy the fairly-trade beans or the locally produced beetroot, valuing healthy local ecosystems or rural livelihoods abroad. ‘Fair Miles: recharting the food miles map’ gives us a timely reminder that our diets should be both ethically and nutritionally balanced. So perhaps Skane beets and (fairly traded) Kenyan beans make the perfect meal afterall!

It can be downloaded for free online at: http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/15516IIED.pdf