The Where of Food

Food...

I know I talk about food a lot.  It's not just because I like food (like this. Seriously, doesn't this look good?).  It's not simply because food service is how I pay my rent.  But because it is perhaps one of the biggest challenges in sustainability.  And it is a challenge that we can't legislate or reduce our way out of very much because as a society, we need food. 

Food is a Multifaceted Problem

Food is perhaps the most unique challenge in sustainability only because it contributes to greenhouse gas production and resource degradation in so many various ways.  Some of them include:

• Land Use - It takes land to produce food, whether you are growing corn or using grazing pasture for cattle. 
• Water Use - Like land, growing food also requires water.  While water is a renewable resource, the challenge typically comes when water resources are not located where they need to be all the time.  Some places have too much water, and some places don't have enough.  Furthermore, growing large quantities of food in one place may be inefficient because there isn't naturally enough water in an area.  But we grow food there anyway.
• Methane Emissions - Methane is a greenhouse gas that is estimated to be more effective at holding heat than carbon dioxide.  Food contributes to methane emissions in several ways, including emissions from cattle farts (recall discussions of cow farts from other posts) and as wasted food decomposes.  
• Carbon Emissions - While growing food generally works to decrease carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, our tendency to grow food far away from where it is sold and consumed forces us to transport our food.  This transportation often produces a lot of carbon dioxide due to vehicle emissions.
• Soil Nutrient Degradation - Large-scale farming can contribute to the degradation of nitrogen and other nutrients in the soil that make it fertile for other things to grow
• Fertilizer Use and Other Pollutants - In order to combat soil nutrient degradation, large-scale farming operations tend to use fertilizers to artificially replenish the nutrients in soil.  However, many of these fertilizers have the potential to hurt drinkable water supplies by polluting the water with harmful substances.  In addition to straightforward fertilizer use, maintaining the health of agricultural goods (cattle, etc.) leads to the use of other substances such as antibiotics, microbes, ammonia, nitrates, heavy metals and salts that can pollute water sources.

Unlike Manufacturing

Unlike manufacturing and other sectors, it is much more difficult to ban, lessen, or even discourage many of the practices that lead to each of these barriers to sustainable food.  We don't need a big screen TV or another car in the way that we need food.  Unlike manufacturing and other sectors, the emissions and pollution created by producing food are necessary and impossible to avoid.

The Way We Grow Food Doesn't Help

While food production leads to each of these other problems, the core reason for this is that we are trying to grow foods in ways that doesn't work very well and doesn't make much sense.  We grow food far away from where it is consumed, and in areas that aren't suited for food production.  Furthermore, the distribution channels of food place it far away from where it is consumed too.  An example of this is the phenomenon known as a 'food desert,' which is when there is no affordable, conventional grocery store located within a reasonable distance of where people live.  While it may seem obvious if this occurs in small towns, the problem is also common in inner cities, too.

How Can We Fix It?

It is true that we can't do very much to reduce the amount of food we produce.  Food waste is a problem, yes, but it is a problem that isn't going anywhere.  So that leaves us with the general solution of trying to produce food closer to where we sell and consume it.  Also, this comes from producing food in areas that are suited for it, and producing foods that are naturally suited to the climate of a region.  It generally comes down to producing food in ways that are naturally efficient, rather than overly-manipulating conditions to create the right climate for our food.  It isn't perfect, but it's a start.