Can an Orange be the new Green?

The next time you’re buying an orange take a moment to check where that orange hails from. Mildura? Or California? The US is a very long way for a piece of fruit to travel. So why are “food miles” important and why should we reduce them?
Firstly an explanation. Food miles is a concept developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1990’s to measure the distance food is transported from the time of it’s making until it reaches the consumer.
Why are excessive food miles bad? If the food you buy has come a long way (I’m talking to you, Californian oranges) and especially if the food arrived by air, there is a heavy carbon footprint. In fact, flying food can create around 10 times more carbon emissions than road transport and around 50 times more than shipping.
So while the food you buy from the supermarket may be fairly inexpensive, the cost to the environment is significant. Food is routinely transported thousands of kilometres to satisfy our desire to consume foods that are out of season. And the foods are often picked unripened and then gassed to artificially ripen them on arrival. Let’s think on that for a moment...
According to an Australian study, the road transportation of a typical food basket in Victoria is a staggering 21 ,073 kilometres, almost the same distance to travel around Australia’s coastline (25,760)!
So let’s go back to our orange. An orange purchased from the Woodend Farmers Market has been grown in Victoria and transported from the farm directly to you. At most that orange has travelled a few hundred kilometres compared to the whopping 12,900 kilometres from California!
So, apart from the obvious benefits that the food is fresher, tastes better and you’re directly supporting a farmer, you’re going a long way to helping reduce the effects of climate change.

Sources: theconsciouschallenge.org, Ceres Farm Foodmiles Report, Wikipedia