Recently I have been hearing a large push for the idea of buying local. The arguments for being that it helps create jobs and lower the carbon footprint of the process of obtaining the food. However, local food is not always better and can sometimes be even worse. According to bothhttp://conniff.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0 … blogs&_r=0 andhttp://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/ … omplicated how many miles your food has traveled is rather trivial in finding out its carbon footprint. One study in New Zealand showed that with good practices the transport of meat over thousands of miles could be as little as one-fourth the carbon footprint a most local food. But how is this Possible?
By all common sense it seem that local food should trump massive, distant agriculture in environmental friendliness and economic boosts. Yet its not true. This is because large scale agriculture is one of the U.S.'s main exports and helps create millions of jobs non-locally. In addition these large scale farms have been able  to implement more environmental strategies that allow for lower carbon emissions. Overall, the carbon label (how much carbon was used in the making and transport of the item) should be what persuades someone to purchase an item not its milage because after all mileage is virtually meaningless.

I agree that sometimes local isn't better. Two new books say local food isn't necessarily more Eco-friendly, even though it travels fewer miles. They cite research showing long-distance transportation accounts for only about 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions in food production; most occur at the farm itself through the use of tractors and other equipment and materials. Co-author Pierre Desrochers, a geography professor at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, says large farms growing crops suited to their region are better for the environment because they use less energy per item and grow more food on less land. He says they offer economic benefits, too: lower prices. Desrochers, who says he has received no funding from agri-business, has no problem with hobby farmers but doesn't want government supporting local food (or, for that matter, ethanol and sugar). Though kids may learn from community gardens, he says, they're better off learning computer and job skills.So if you want to buy local food for its freshness or to support area farmers, fine, but don't do it to sav e the planet
   In order to truly know which food is better, you have to calculate a lot. The easiest way for people to know would be maybe to have the companies tell you what the carbon label is. If we were to make this a requirement, it would be so much easier to know which food is better. This would also encourage everyone to lower their carbon usage when manufacturing their products. We could make this a requirement, like how each restaurant is required to tell you the amount of calories.

I agree that buying local food isn’t necessarily the best choice. In Harvard Extension’s 2012 Buying Local: Do Food Miles Matter? They describe how the processing (transportation, selling, waste disposal, etc.) of most foods doesn’t produce nearly as much CO₂ as its production. The production of items such as beef, pork, and lamb are some of the highest producers of CO₂. Why? Well you have to look into all aspects of its growth. With the production of livestock, to the foods they eat, they require multitudes of pesticides, farm equipment, fertilizers, and even for some plants, greenhouses to help elongate there growing season throughout the winter. Then you have to count in all the amounts of food each of these animals requires throughout their growth. The food and therefore the number of carbon emissions add up. However, these foods’ requirements don’t apply to every produced food item. Other foods such as beans or tomatoes don’t require much energy or release much carbon throughout their production. In these cases the distance of their transportation does have a greate r effect on the portion of its total processing and production that produces CO₂. So in cases like these we do need to start to think about how the locations where foods we eat are grown can affect our own carbon footprint.

Sources:
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/hub/bl … les-matter

Environmental Working Group image:
[EWG-food-miles-report](//res.cloudinary.com/moot/image/upload/t_d3-gallery-s1/v1413131460/:footprint:pLVg:ewgfoodmilesreport.png.jpg)