Where does our food come from?

Food miles are the measure of the distance travelled by food products between production and consumption, or from field to plate.

The recently released CERES report identified that for a typical food basket in Victoria the total distance of the road transportation was 21,073 km (almost the same distance to travel around Australia’s coastline). The total distance for all transportation of the food basket is 70,803 km, (equivalent to travelling nearly twice around the circumference of the Earth). All these "food miles" take a toll on the environment, through greenhouse gas emissions from road, air and sea freight.

While there are some limitations to the report, which can be downloaded here, it does raise some important issues about Australians’ food consumption and the level of information available for consumers to make informed decisions about their food choices.

Yet, food miles are only one way to measure the sustainability of our food. There are many other sustainable living issues to consider (and you can use the Compass of Sustainability to break them down):

Nature issues: such as food waste, embodied water and energy;
Economy issues: genuine cost and affordability of food;
Society issues: such as social justice, impacts of global trade and supporting developing countries by purchasing Fair Trade foods; and
Wellbeing issues: such as personal health and the nutritional values of various approaches to food production.

Our food system is complex and there are no simple answers, but it does raise some really interesting questions for further exploration:

• Perhaps you could explore environmental issues in food production using this short animation 'Watch your (Fo)odometer' (note: this is on You Tube). This Video Nation/ Hidden Driver report tracks how many miles food travels from 'field to fork'.
• The Age’s WED Teaching Guide provides a set of research activities for students to explore issues about food miles and food waste (pdf file, see pg 12-13).
• Food Technology students could explore the possibility of developing a menu sourcing only locally produced food, like the new 100 mile café in Melbourne. At the café, all ingredients come from within 160 km of Melbourne and the menu identifies the ingredients food miles.