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Gas Guzzling Grapes?
It may look like we are eating Chilean grapes, he [Pollan] argues, but in fact, once we consider transportation costs, we are guzzling petroleum. Economics offers a clearer view of what is going on. We do need to save energy, but it is difficult for a central planner (or for that matter a food commentator) to identify what is waste, relative to the costs of eliminating it....If fuel becomes more expensive, we'll likely adopt peak-load energy pricing, and drivers may scrap their SUVs for hybrids. But we probably won't plant grapes in our backyards. While we must conserve energy, we cut back where it makes the most sense; grape-shipping is not the place to start. Global trade does involve transportation costs, but it also puts food production where it is cheapest, again saving energy by economizing on costs of labor, irrigation, and fertilization, relative to the alternatives.
That's the ever-wise Tyler reviewing the Omnivore's Dilemma in Slate.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on November 1, 2006 at 03:33 PM in Economics, Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
After energy, transportation and chemicals food is about the next most
energy intensive sector of the economy. My info on this is from the 1970s,
so I might have left out something.
Posted by: spencer at Nov 1, 2006 4:04:48 PM
Two comments: First, Tyler has demonstrated on this forum that he prizes price over quality for food. I grew up on grapes (among other things) grown in the backyard. Chilean grapes don't compare at all to that. Fresh produce (and that ultimately means locally-grown) tastes better and is more nutritious than food which is shipped from afar, whether that means Chile or the other side of the U.S.
The second matter is sustainability: That food coming from afar is massively subsidized both directly and indirectly (through societal impacts such as pollution, loss of topsoil, etc.) Eating locally and in season mitigates these at least partially. It's not a choice between eating grapes grown in Chile vs having a grape arbor in the backyard: It's a question of eating industrially vs eating locally and artisanally. The industrial capitalist model of production for food doesn't really result in the best quality (taste or nutritional) product, and in fact is likely responsible for the national obesity epidemic. Maximizing profit does not solve all problems well.
Posted by: don Hosek at Nov 1, 2006 4:10:12 PM
I think you may have missed the point, don.
Posted by: josh at Nov 1, 2006 4:38:02 PM
> The industrial capitalist model of production for food doesn't really result in the best quality (taste or nutritional) product, and in fact is likely responsible for the national obesity epidemic.
Right...overweight Americans just can't help themselves from eating those poor-tasting Chilean grapes.
Posted by: Christopher Monnier at Nov 1, 2006 4:43:25 PM
I agree with what Tyler Cowen states about this topic. Fuel prices do seem to be getting expensive but we still ship
grapes and other food products all over the globe. People may start trying to eat more healthy and try to save energy
but in the long run it is probably going to cost just as much to ship the healthier foods as it is other foods. When it
comes to organic farming which is probably a good thing, as more farms become big in organic farming, this is going to
cause the small and first organic farmers to go out of the business. However I do agree that as fuel prices are getting
more expensive, we do need to start looking for other alternatives. But when it comes to food, it seems as if the
cheapest food is the food that is going to get brought into the U.S.
Posted by: William I. at Nov 1, 2006 5:08:55 PM
Yeah...cheap, abundant food is a scourge we need to eliminate.
Posted by: bob montgomery at Nov 1, 2006 5:09:35 PM
An interesting aspect of all this is that freight has been becoming less expensive - and therefore a lower percentage of product cost - since containerization.
For many good, it is now almost negligible as part of the cost.
Grapes, which come in reefer (chilled) containers are more expensive to ship, but not outrageously so.
The idea of "food miles" (the distance food has come) is becoming popular in the UK but is a vast oversimplification.As someone pointed out (I can't find the source) it probably uses more energy for someone to drive to the farmers'market that it did to ship food from overseas to the supermarket.
I think the lesson is: be careful of obvious targets.
Posted by: ken nielsen at Nov 1, 2006 5:46:11 PM
To don Hosek,
The obesity epidemic (if that's the right word) started about 1990 or so,
but industrial food production is a lot older. I remember very few fat
kids in school. Lack of exercise (not a problem when I was a kid), and
sitting in front of a TV (and increasingly a computer and other
gadgets) is probably a bigger factor.
Posted by: Bill Stepp at Nov 1, 2006 6:09:40 PM
One point that is often overlooked when talking about industrial agriculture is that the concept of localized agriculture as envisioned by it's proponents lacks the historical precident they often assume it has. The spice trade, for example, predates recorded history. Many spices unambiguously taste better when fresh, yet people were willing of transportation methodto transport those spices immense distances using the most primitives in order to escape the limitations of the local growing conditions. Grain trading on the Mediterranean was significant as well under the Roman Empire due to some regions (such as the areas flooded by the Nile River) being much more efficient. Throughout history, foods have been acquired from as far away as transportation and preservation technologies have made it practical. Refridgeration and modern shipping techniques make it possible for us to get Chilean grapes, but in their absence, we'd still probably be consuming grapes from Chile, only they'd be made into raisins or wine so that they'd keep on the longer voyage.
Posted by: MattXIV at Nov 1, 2006 6:25:59 PM
All this talk of "locally grown produce" and "wasteful shipping" is just going to create a rising tide of trade protectionism disguised as environmental stewardship. Has anyone thought of the possible unintended consequences of such draconian import restrictions?
Posted by: Raging Ranter at Nov 1, 2006 7:02:13 PM
Food that is cheap and abundant because people don't pay for the externalities at the cash register is a scourge that we need to eliminate. I would like to be comparing the full costs of imported food (including environmental damage and health costs to food laborers and dissociation from the natural world) to the costs of local foods raised conscientiously. Then I would like people to choose based on flavor and nutrition.
Posted by: Megan at Nov 1, 2006 7:43:11 PM
Watching from here in New Zealand, the prospects are near-terrifying. The Brits seem to be racing towards a new excuse for agricultural protectionism based on fuel used in shipping (thanks to the Stern report, which characterised kiwifruit as being shipped by air and generating several kilos of carbon emissions per kilo of fruit shipped; never mind that they're sent via cargo ship and not by air). Folks at Lincoln University here (which specialises in ag econ) have shown reasonably convincingly that even accounting for shipping, the carbon effects of NZ agriculture are still lower than growing produce and dairy in the subsidised and heavily fertilised EU. Yandle's bootleggers and baptists model doesn't suggest happy outcomes on this front.
Posted by: Eric Crampton at Nov 1, 2006 8:21:13 PM
Where do the local food proponents live?? I go to the farmer's markets here in Chicago, they have some good stuff, but still, this is the upper midwest. To really go to a local growth only would consign most of us to the just eat bread era of right before the industrial revolution. We'd have to radically depopulate cities and spread out population. I prefer California wine to the swill they cook up in Michigan, thank you.
I agree that grapes grown on a vine in the backyard will taste better than Chilean grapes, but without the Industrial Ag system most would have little choices at all. It was bad enough growing up in a very rural town where the choices really were less than available in the city. I can only imagine what it would be like without the system that got us atleast fresh lettuce. No, wait, I can imagine because people were still 'canning' things from their gardens in jars, it sucks.
Posted by: ElamBend at Nov 1, 2006 9:33:26 PM
i agree i dont think that the grape trade is the place to start saving energy, or gas.
if the food is cheaper somewhere else why not go there? as long as the profit out weighs the cost who cares?
Posted by: blake at Nov 1, 2006 10:12:08 PM
What happens if there's a drought for this locally-
grown food - or ethanol?
If the sustainability crowd ever told the truth,
there'd be about 4 billion less on this planet and
we and the Jews would be the 1st voted off.
I despised working in the garden. I like being able
to eat food from around the world. I like my hybrid
flowers that can be grown in the upper midwest.
Socialism kills, free markets feed. This country
was built on trade. And I thought organic farming
used more water and land than industrial?
What is this fascination/romanced view w/living 2-300 years ago?
Posted by: Sandy P at Nov 1, 2006 10:15:26 PM
We could save fuel by buying local grapes, but it will not save us money. That is what it all comes down too. Are we really "saving" anything by using less fuel but spending twice as much for grapes. I think not. We don't care how it is structured, we want the most benefit for our dollar.
Posted by: Lance F. at Nov 1, 2006 10:37:24 PM
This argument about grapes reminds me of the old argument about email: one could argue that a piece of email costs the world gazillions - or it may cost essentially nothing. Does a grape cost vast sums because a trading infrastructure exists that allows it to be moved around, or does it cost very little because that infrastructure would be there anyway?
After all, the argument that it costs lots is based on the idea that that infrastructure should go away, meaning that world trade should be halted. Making the infrastructure more energy-efficient, or using better fuels for transport - sail-powered container-ships, etc - seems to not be the issue.
I also like that Tyler talked about "farms" versus "gardens". Farming is a business, and a nasty, hard one at that. Gardens for anything other than the elite are a product of the Industrial Revolution, which allowed sufficient free resources for people to go "back to nature". Gardens devoted to growing edible crops are still gardens - they aren't done for trade or sustenance, but for some form of psychic gain.
One does not grow population-sustaining amounts of food in gardens - one needs farms. And farming is still nasty enough that most people get out of it at the first opportunity - just ask any Chinese peasant whether he would rather stay on his plot or go work in a sweatshop making stuff for Walmart. They've already voted for the sweatshop option by the tens of millions...
Posted by: Foobarista at Nov 1, 2006 10:43:32 PM
Socialism kills, free markets feed.
In the farming trade, we have neither.
- Josh
Posted by: Wild Pegasus at Nov 1, 2006 11:00:33 PM
It seems to me that if you want to save energy growing your own grapes that is your own decision to make. However if you can not see the benefit from someone that is good a growing grapes spending their time doing that and you who I assume is not good a growing grapes doing something that you are good at the will be a greater benefit on both sides of the fence. This seems to be eluded to in the post and I agree. Countries should do what they are good at and create some kind of economy of scale for themselves and allow the others to do the same that way everyone can benefit as much as possible from trade and the energy cost will be negligable thanks to these economies.
Posted by: Will Johnson at Nov 1, 2006 11:26:13 PM
I visited a very interesting site, they have a vast collection of books which have been categories and are presented to viewers in an easy-to-search format. You should check it out.
http://www.khichdee.com/category-catid-11-paraid-0.htm
Posted by: Donald at Nov 2, 2006 12:43:20 AM
The question of raising our own grapes ignores two points.
One is the seasonal nature of production. Use to be you
could only get fresh fruit and vegetables in season. Now
we import fresh fruit and vegetables from the southern
hemsiphere so we have fresh ones all year -- one of the small
increases in living standards not captured by the cpi.
So much of the increased imports of foodstuffs is not displacing
or replacing domestic products, it is supplementing it.
Second is the alternative use of the land. One reaons grapefruit
production in moving from Florida to Brazil is that the Florida
land is more valuable for housing.
Posted by: spencer at Nov 2, 2006 9:09:19 AM
In Minneapolis, the average temperature from November to March is 40 degrees or below, and from December to February the *average* temperature is below freezing. I'm not a farmer, but I'm pretty sure you can't grow many crops in freezing or sub-freezing weather.
So, a question for the local-food only advocates:
If you eliminate non-local produce, you are saying that the 400,000 people in Minneapolis should eat only canned or frozen produce for five months of the year. That's your vision of a better world? No thanks.
Posted by: bob montgomery at Nov 2, 2006 12:07:58 PM
"If you eliminate non-local produce, you are saying that the 400,000 people in Minneapolis should eat only canned or frozen produce for five months of the year."
No local food activists that I'm aware of are absolutist in that sense. In fact, I think many are very flexible as to how to define 'local.' But obviously this isn't an all-or-nothing proposition here. I grew up in Central California - a place that grows much of the fresh fruit in the US. Yet, walk into a grocery store and you will be hard pressed to find what is so abundant outside. Instead: grapes from Chile, Oranges from Argentina, and lettuce from mexico. Something's wrong here. These rational actors at the supermarket are not taking into account the full cost of their purchases.
I actually just read Omnivore's Dilemma and appreciated it a great deal. Tyler accuses Pollan of "fuzzy nostalgia for the preindustrial past" which is probably true - and the book also has too much gratuitous leftism for me. But it is a shame that Tyler didn't address the central criticisms in the book.
I found the part about Joel Salatin's farm to be most convincing. Can America practice sustainability and be more productive than industrial agriculture? Absolutely. Read the book.
Posted by: Peter at Nov 2, 2006 5:28:29 PM
The US is a big nation, people forget that.
Salatin's farm is located in Virginia which depending on region gets 33-60 inches of rain per year.
The fact that Virginia gets at least twice as much rain as many of the western states gives him a lot of options that are not possible in more arid regions of the US. Not to mention the wde variation in soil types across the US
Many people assume what he does would be physically possible in other parts of the united states. An assumption I find somewhat doubtful given the wide variance in physiographic conditions across the US.
Interestingly enough one of his articles listed a litany of regulatory roadblocks (many related to zoning) that prevent him from doing an even better job.
http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Salatin_Sept03.pdf
Posted by: TJT at Nov 2, 2006 11:37:18 PM
I didn't mean that all farms could produce high quality grass pastures, and in turn high production of beef, chicken, etc. I meant that given almost any agricultural environment (Any that I am familiar with anyway) farming practices could be modified for sustainability with no drop in production. (Whether the farmer is willing to put in the hard work required is another question.)
The only point I am trying to make is that sustainability and production are not at odds - in fact, there is good reason to suspect a positive correlation.
Posted by: Peter at Nov 3, 2006 5:13:53 PM
