Why eating locally sourced food is better for climate change?

The world emits roughly 3 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases annually during food transportation from production to consumption sites, according to a new study published in Nature Food. This represents 19% of the total food-related emissions, covering food production, land-use change and transportation. The study’s estimate is 7 times higher than the previous ones. According to David Raubenheimer, Nutritional ecologist and co-author of the study, earlier studies only considered the direct transport of particular foods (animal products), leaving out associated products (soybean to feed the animals).
High-income countries are the major contributors. Countries such as the United States, Germany, France and Japan constitute 12.5% of the world’s population yet generate 46 % of food transport emissions.
Contributions from India, Brazil, Australia and Argentina are tied to exports. Access to improved technology and expanding food trade has helped these nations rapidly scale up food production in recent decades.
Still, low-income countries, according to the analysis, cause only 20% of emissions despite supporting about half of the global population.
The researchers also found that transporting vegetables, fruits, cereal, flour, sugar and dairy products has a heavy carbon footprint and surpasses that of animals. Plant products are with high transport emissions because of their bulk and the fact that they often require refrigerated transport. Emissions from transporting vegetables and fruits are twice that of producing them. In contrast, transportation emissions from animal products are less. But production generates high emissions in other ways, such as the impact on land and high methane emissions.
The 3 gigatonnes can also be categorized in terms of imports, exports (international) and domestic transportation. A majority (1.7 GT) is caused by domestic transport emissions, while 1.3GT by international transport emissions.
The world could reduce emissions by 0.38 GT by replacing imports with locally grown food. According to David Raubenheimer, eating locally is ideal, especially in affluent countries. The study recommended that advanced nations invest in clean transport and incentivise food businesses to reduce emissions linked to producing and distributing food commodities.
Prof. Manfred Lenzen said in a statement, (professor of Sustainability Research at Integrated Sustainability Analysis in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney) “Both investors and governments can help by creating environments that foster sustainable food supply,”
The researchers will explore the impacts of diets in their future studies. This is a very important question given the global environmental crisis and the big impact that food has on the environment.

[udaybhaskar]

Thanks for very informative message....but pl disable that very irritating mosquito sound in the background...

[cvjbxvp]

I know that in Western UP, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand we eat locally grown seasonal vegetables.

[bapparawal]

According to Ayurveda, eating locally grown food is best for health. As food grown over in any region is best suited to that region.

[sachin]

Not only for environment but also locally grown food is good for your gut and climatic conditions which you live in

[SentientMedia]

The main determinant of a food’s climate footprint is whether it is plant-based or derived from an animal.

[Planet_Cents]

Thank you for this analysis on the impact of food transportation on greenhouse emission using scientific evidence. Eating locally sourced food will indeed reduce emissions from food transportation. Stakeholders in the food industry should also employ more sustainable means of transport because food export and import are inevitable to meet the increasing food demand. We will add your video to our playlists to inspire climate solutions. - Team Planet Cents

[crypton_l]

Good wordy message but the thumbnail shows blueberries avocados hybrid garlic etc etc Don't you media folks know one visual speaks louder than a 1000 words?? Try showing some LOCAL produce? 🙄

[cvjbxvp]

Very good video, I really liked the important info put in short time video, also liked the quality of the video
God bless you and your team

[Addy]

Thank you for sharing this important information so quickly (the paper was published on June 20th). However, I'd suggest providing references and links to such material in the description so that interested people can easily explore further. I sincerely appreciate your efforts in increasing awareness about complex climate/environment and socioeconomic issues.🙏

[ankitkindo]

Good video for both ecology and economy

[joeantony]

Still humans wander in search of food, endlessly bartering in exchange of their own greedy needs, vicious cycle as always prevails over and soars above our heads, not too late for an introspection....

[chriscarrol]

Rousseau said eay the rich. That would actually save the planet for the most humans. Most green eating one can do.

[Kirnotsarg]

Specifying emissions in absolute terms is misleading. ALWAYS specify in relative terms. As a matter of fact, water-based transport is the least impactful of all modes of transport.
Also specify the impacts of alternative 'solutions'.

[someguy]

Eating local is not as important as what you eat. Imported plant based food shipped by sea is much better for climate change than local meat! Shipping is extremely efficient today.

[covidwarrior]

We indians who are vegetarians will starve in the uk as almost no indian veges grow here.