Locavores love to talk about the number 1500. It’s cited as a reason to eat seasonally, to eat locally, and to support local farmers and farmers’ markets. It is the supposed number of miles that food travels to get to its consumer. This number has been used in reference to different kinds of food in different parts of the country and has essentially become gospel truth to members of the local food movement. However, the number comes from a single study published in 2001 out of Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Due to data limitations and a narrow research question, the study uses publicly available terminal market data on the distance 33 types of fruit and vegetables traveled to reach a produce market in Chicago. This data is also limited in that it shows the state in which the produce was grown, but not where in that state. The researchers were required to use the geographical center of the state as a proxy. The argument against using this statistic has been well developed by James McWilliams in his book Just Food (1) (a fantastic read challenging a few of the prominent assumptions made about the food system) and Jane Black in a Slate article (2).

 
So, if 1500 miles isn’t an accurate statistic, how do we determine the true energy cost of our food system? And how do we implement policy to make that food system, on which we are completely dependent, more resilient to volatile energy markets and potentially decreasing fossil fuel supplies? It turns out that transportation of food from production to consumer is a relatively small piece of the energy cost pie (about 14% of the total fossil fuel energy input to the food system, according to a University of Michigan report (3)). A significantly larger chunk of the energy use is in the household for storage and preparation of food (31.7%, ibid.). Production represents 21.4%, processing 16.4%, packaging 6.6%, food retail 3.7%, and commercial food service 6.6% (ibid.). So focusing only on reducing the number of miles our food travels may help reduce the energy and carbon footprint of that food, but there are larger fish to fry, so to speak.
Importantly, food traveling fewer miles is not necessarily more energy efficient. Food traveling by rail, ship, or large tractor-trailer likely requires less energy on a per-unit food basis than food transported by an inefficient farm truck to a market. Additionally, trying to grow tomatoes in the off-season in northern New York would require a huge amount of energy in the form of grow lamps, heated greenhouses, and interior irrigation. However, they can be grown with much fewer energy inputs in areas of the world experiencing their growing season while we are not. Without the globalization of our food system, we could not eat tomatoes in December (or May, or October, for that matter).

 
Additionally, farmers’ markets are not always the havens for locavores that they claim to be. Many markets, including the Syracuse Regional Market, allow “out of state” vendors to set up at the market. These vendors purchase produce produce, sometimes locally but primarily from wholesale markets out of state, and resell it at the markets. They blend in with the local farmers, sometimes owning vans labeled with a farm name (despite the fact that they do not own or work at a farm), and pass off their produce as local. It’s more obvious when they have lemons and kiwi for sale that have obviously not been grown in New York, but sometimes it can be difficult for a consumer to make an informed decision.
My point is not that we should not be making an effort to reduce energy consumption in the food system, or that eating locally isn’t worthwhile. There are many reasons to eat locally, including nutritional benefits derived from fresh, minimally processed foods, the support of local businesses that provide jobs, and the connection to the land and people that feed you. However, as far as policy is concerned, we should be thinking about the larger system. The increase in energy consumption in the processing industry has been large over the past few decades, as Americans have increasingly relied on processed and convenience foods. Encouraging the consumption of minimally processed, minimally packaged food (which is also arguably healthier) by focusing subsidies on fresh produce rather than corn (a prominent ingredient in a wide variety of processed foods) could help reduce this energy sink. Additionally, over 30% of the energy is used in the household for storage and cooking. More efficient appliances, rated through Energy Star and supported by a buyback program (a sort of “cash for clunkers” for refrigerators and stoves), could help reduce this enormous portion of the energy costs of the food system.

 
On a personal level, as noted by the authors of the University of Michigan report, we can reduce our own food energy/carbon footprint by reducing the amount of meat in our diet. Animals are highly inefficient at converting grains to meat, and it is much more energy efficient to consume the grains directly. Organic foods may also reduce the energy costs of production because they are grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which require large inputs of energy in manufacturing (ibid.). The University of Michigan report also notes that while refrigerators have become substantially more efficient over time, they have also become larger, negating the efficiency gains. Buying smaller amounts of food at more regular intervals and relying less on frozen convenience meals may allow us to reduce our refrigeration needs.
There’s a great deal we can do to reduce our energy demands in the food sector, we just need the proper information to make informed choices. Maybe in the future food will be labeled with a carbon or energy footprint label to allow us to make those decisions fully-informed, but until then we should use the data available and common sense to inform our policy and our personal choices.

(1) McWilliams, J.E. 2009. Just Food. New York: Little, Brown, and Company.
(2) Jane Black “What’s in a Number? : How the press got the idea that food travels 1500 miles from farm to plate”
(3) University of Michigan “U.S. Food System”