Questioning Across Distance--Food Mileage and LCA Reflect Environmental Dialogue on Food (May 2003)

Questioning Across Distance--Food Mileage and LCA Reflect Environmental Dialogue on Food (May 2003)

In 2003, Japan was torn between food safety and environmental awareness. 2 years had passed since the outbreak of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in Japan, and the safety and sustainability of imported food was beginning to be questioned as "traceability" of food became a social issue. It was against this backdrop that the concept of "Food Miles," which originated in the United Kingdom, attracted attention.

This concept visualizes how far the food we eat has traveled and measures the CO₂ and energy load it emits. In countries like Japan, where the food self-sufficiency rate is below 40%, much of the food on our tables arrives via long-distance transportation from overseas. The major movement during this period was to re-calculate the impact of this and to quantify the environmental significance of "local production and local consumption.

At the same time, the concept of life cycle assessment (LCA) was beginning to penetrate the Japanese public and policy makers. LCA in agriculture provides a bird's-eye view of the "whole food picture," including everything from fertilizer and pesticide production and machine operation to packaging and disposal. For example, the question of whether imported organic vegetables or vegetables produced domestically using conventional farming methods have a smaller environmental impact has expanded beyond a simple "organic vs. non-organic" dichotomy to a more complex discussion involving distribution and energy structures. The question has expanded beyond the simple dichotomy of "organic vs.

What these developments suggest is that food and the environment, agriculture and energy, are not separate topics, but that the power to direct the future of society lies in the daily choices we make about what to eat. The Food Miles debate has brought us an "invisible conversation" in terms of visualizing the invisible numbers of transportation distances and using them to promote a change in consumer awareness.

In 2003, such discussions may have remained confined to specialists and some citizen groups. However, the "ethics of distance" that this concept brought to Japan provided the impetus for many subsequent practices, such as the local production for local consumption movement, the reevaluation of local agriculture, and the spread of carbon footprinting. Eating and talking with the environment - this realization was certainly germinating in Japan at this time.