Food miles

I was thinking about air transport this morning, and specifically wondering how the number of passenger flights related to the number of freight flights, and, within freight flights, how large a percentage was devoted to food transport.  Everyone goes on and on about cutting down one’s flight travel to help the environment, and I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t try.  But I wondered how much of an impact such restrictions would make when compared with transporting food around the world.  Specifically, I figured that the global food industry’s flights would probably outweigh (pun intended) the passenger travel industry.

I wasn’t able to find any coherent research into this - perhaps I haven’t found the magic combination of words for Google.  However, I found this report by Defra, a UK governmental body.  It says that “[f]ood transport by air experienced the most rapid growth of any mode since 1992, with air kilometres more than trebling.  Food transport by air has been rising by about 9 percent per year since 1992.”

I also found this report on the TIACA (The International Air Cargo Association) website.  Most interesting for me was the statement that “The Colography Group Inc. estimates total world airfreight in 2002 at 52.8 billion pounds. Estimates by others assert that perishables make up 14-18[%] of total air cargo worldwide. These shipments represent the largest segment of world cargo. This segment is forecast to increase 4% per year for the next five years.”

And finally, based off of this BTS report, in 2000, 638,902,993 passengers flew and 12,690,673.36 tons of freight were flown about the place.  (These are U.S. stats.) If we divide the total number of passengers in half and assume an average weight for a man of 190 pounds and an average weight for a woman of 160 pounds (yes, I’m rounding oddly, but this isn’t exactly the most scientific of entries), then the total weight of passengers transported about the country (?) in 2000 would be about 55,904,012 tons.

Which is significantly more than the 12 million-ish tons of freight flown around.  And which is really significantly more than the 1.8 million tons of food flown around the place, if you ignore dates and apply the 14% mentioned in the TIACA report to freight tonnage. 

Which kinda shoots my argument in the foot.  Fudge.

However, it’s still interesting to look at the Food Climate Research Network webpage.  And local food is still good.  ‘Cause it just is.  (Oh yes, oh yes, I’m going to do just dandy at grad school with that kind of argument. And with the complete lack of attention to research methods and restrictions that I’ve employed in this entry.)