Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Bumface
The other complication is the energy intensity of agriculture. Industrialized agriculture is significantly more energy intensive than hand farming. A basket of berries grown on some remote hillside in Chile and shipped via containership is significantly less carbon intensive than anything grown around Calgary and trucked to your local farmer's market.
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I'm not sure how you can make this conclusion. How is importing food from Chile less carbon intensive than locally raising cattle fed on locally grown grasses and grains. Do you have any idea how many pounds of berries it takes to equal the calories, that humans can actually consume, from 1 lbs of ground beef?
In these examples, specific farming practices and inputs are likely to be far more significant than the products themselves, when looking at carbon output.
Imported fruits and vegetables should be avoided at all costs. Transport carbon inputs are massive. The shipping industry is responsible for 3.1% of carbon output, and it's a relatively dirty type of that output:
https://www.transportenvironment.org...climate-change