This month’s in-depth interview explores the complex subject of food miles. Food miles measure the cost to the environment of getting food from the farm gate to the plate. How far food travels has become an important issue for policy-makers and consumers alike. Katie quizzes Professor Pretty on how our food system impacts on climate change, the cost to the environment of the cheap food we have come to expect and discovers what "supermarket greenwash” means.

Professor Pretty is Deputy-Chair of the Food Standards Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) and has advised the government on social and environmental development. He has also served on government advisory committees for the Department for Envirnonment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Department For International Development (DFID), the Cabinet Office and the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI). He is the co-author with Professor Tim Lang of ‘Buy Local Food to Save the Planet’, a report published in 2005 the same year that DEFRA published its report ‘The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development’.

Read more about Professor Pretty here: http://www.essex.ac.uk/bs/staff/pretty/

DEFRA provided FoodRadio.com with the following statement on food miles:

“The environmental impacts of air freight merits examination but the relationship between food miles and carbon emissions is a complex matter. This issue would have to be looked at a global level. Countries acting unilaterally would disadvantage their own food sector. Furthermore the prospect of dealing with air freight emissions will be of great concern to producers in developing countries, many of whom depend on it to get produce, particularly perishable produce, to markets like the EU. We need to consider these complex issues very carefully to ensure that any proposed action in the future does not disrupt international commitments, or contravene World Trade Organisation rules.”

Find out more about food miles

Food Miles on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles

Food Miles Calculator - http://www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm

Farmer’s Weekly Food Miles Campaign - http://www.fwi.co.uk/gr/foodmiles/index.html

Further Reading

The Real Costs of Modern Farming by Jules Pretty - http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/pretty205.htm

The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development -
http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/reports/foodmiles/default.asp