The Fresh Produce Consortium has sent out to members its draft response to the Soil Association green paper on the airfreight of organic produce.
The consortium is inviting comments and amendments from its membership on the document before it is submitted to the Soil Association on September 21. Its nine-page draft outlines the contribution of fresh-produce transport to greenhouse gas emissions, the economic and social value of exports, fresh produce imports in the UK and action by the fresh produce industry on helping to alleviate harmful atmospheric emissions.
“We need to look at ways of reducing the environmental impact of international trade rather than imposing arbitrary trade barriers which serve little purpose other than misleading consumers into believing they are doing something good for the environment,” the draft states. ”Furthermore, it is in neither the industry’s nor the consumer’s interests to restrict the range of choice or the volume of fresh produce that is available in the UK.”
The draft also points out that it is extremely difficult to quantify the amounts fo organic fresh produce airfreighted to the UK, but calculates that by far the biggest airfreight exporter in sub-Saharan Africa is Kenya which sent 32,500 tonnes of fresh produce by plane in 2005.
At this stage, the FPC would support option one for no action or option four in the association’s green paper to label airfreight only if labels indicated the carbon footprint of a product “rather than the simplistic and potentially misleading number of food miles,” the draft stated.
The consortium recommends a standard model to assess the carbon footprint of business and products and that foods should be labelled according to this. “The development of an accepted carbon footprint standard would enable businesses to identify where improvement could be made in their businesses in order to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions,” stated the draft.
Members who wish to see, amend or comment on the draft should contact the FPC fpc@freshproduce.org.uk
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