In the 90s Dr. Lim Lang, professor of Food Policy at London’s City University created the term “food miles”.

As the name might indicate, food miles indicate the distance food travels from where it was sourced to our plates, in terms of the environmental impact it made. This includes the aviation, shipping, trucks and your car trip to get it from your local distributor.

Shipping Problem: In July of this year at a key international meeting, the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) didn’t issue the hoped for compulsory plans to cut emissions from the global shipping industry. The proposed reduction schemes was deemed voluntary. What’s worse is that the shipping and aviation industries are not regulated under the Kyoto Protocol. Officials recommended that a market based mechanism be developed that includes incentives for the industry to invest in fuel and energy efficient technologies, designs and operations.

Aviation has been used increasingly to transfer fresh fruit and vegetables between continents. This is due to the short duration it takes compared to shipping, which is impractical for a variety of food stuff. Some large retailers, like Tesco in the UK, responded to the growing curiosity of shoppers by indicating the imported food items with relevant symbol labels. However, there is a large argument arising from concern about demonizing products imported from the developing world that depend on these exports for their livelihoods. The BBC reports that one million people in Africa are supported by the £200million fresh fruit and vegetable trade with the UK alone.

The situation is more complicated than that though, intricate calculations must be made before any drastic moves are made. For instance, food miles produce less emissions if the UK imports tomatoes from Spain, than if they are grown in green house gases.