Interesting, I'll have to read up. Although for me, buying locally has been more about supporting the [rapidly disappearing and struggling] farmers in my area rather than simply carbon footprint.

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Whether or not this affects a consumer's resolve that eating local is the best choice depends on why that person chose to eat local in the first place. It's not always about environmentalism. Sometimes it simply has to do with freshness and supporting local business, which are both also advantages of eating local. Also, local farmers/butchers/bakers can tell you much more about how the food was made, where it came from, etc. This is all information you don't get about food you pick up from the supermarket.

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These kinds of studies are very misleading. Sharon at Casaubon's Book blog (http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com) talked about this article yesterday and mentions that there are lots of ways to calculate the food's total ecological impact that can skew the results one way or the other. There is no doubt that the best food with the best ecological impact is food that is grown close to where it is consumed, grown with a minimal amount of inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, irrigation water piped from a long way away, etc) and that looking for local foods will more often meet at least some of these requirements. There are also lots of benefits to eating locally besides the food having a lower carbon footprint - it keeps dollars in the local economy and keeps local jobs, it provides incentive for farmers near where you live to stay in business and not sell out farms to suburban sprawl and development, and you're much more likely to have a relationship with the farmer and the food.

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I think the crux of the misconception is "poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed." That's just not true. Economic externalities convinced British farmers that using feed was good for the bottom line. A "poorer" pasture supports fewer lambs than a "richer" pasture -- how about raising fewer lambs? There's also evidence that "feed" produces animals that are less healthy to eat. All without considering where the "feed" might be coming from or how it may have been produced (think: #2 feed corn, shipped from a country where big agribusiness is heavily subsidized, fields are synthetically fertilized, dosed with pesticides, etc).

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Basically it is like comparing getting sugar in Europe from local beets (made locally, but it is a VERY intensive process) versus importing cane sugar (easy to make) from the caribbean.

As always in life, there is no simple answer but food miles is a tool in the toolbox of those of us who buy on eco-concious

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This article is pretty silly really. Eating local means only consuming food from within 100 miles. Some even go further to say an hours drive.

If you are eating foods from your country that are mass produced and shipped all over, you aren't quite getting the point.

http://www.reciperate.com

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