How much does eating locally-produced food help the climate problem? What are the other potential environmental and social benefits of eating locally-grown/produced food? Do you have a food garden in your school or at home? If not, do you want one?
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Issues With Non-Locally Sourced Food
There are 2 main problems with not eating locally or not growing your own food. The first is that transporting food produces a lot of carbon. The second is that large fields and orchards use a lot of water. Science Daily says that 3 gigatonnes of carbon are produced transporting food per year. The California Backyard Orchard says that 1 apple tree by the coast needs 16 gallons of water per day, that one tree uses 5,840 gallons of water per day. But there are typically more than one tree in an orchard. Let's say there are 150 trees in our orchard, they would use 876,000 gallons of water per year, and that’s only one orchard of many. Locally grown food often still applies to the second issue, so growing one's own food is another way to help the climate. That way you can ensure the food you eat doesn't use excessive amounts of water. I have a garden at my house and we eat a lot of our food from there.