In one of the more direct lectures of the Re:fresh conference, Tara Garnett of the Food Climate Research Network discussed the difference the food chain as a whole makes to climate changing emissions and what we can do to reduce those emissions. Entitled Food and Climate Change - The world on a plate, Garnett approached the subject by taking the delegates through their choices and how they can make a difference as both part of the fruit and vegetable industry and as consumers.
Garnett started the lecture with the news that the latest IPCC report proves a definite change in the world climate and that it is almost certainly due to human interference. “Climate change is happening,” she said “And it is our fault”.
Garnett brought it to the audience's attention that temperatures are set to rise by the end of 2100 by three per cent. “This is very high and something needs to be done about it, and fast,” she said. “If we switched off all the lights now, we would see a one per cent rise - so the damage has already been done.” Garnett maintained that we have to limit this damage, as “all climate change is potentially dangerous”. The problem, as Garnett sees it, is that carbon emissions should be cut by 80 per cent by the year 2050, but the government is not even meeting its target of cutting carbon emissions by 60 per cent. “A profound change needs to happen,” she said.
A new Climate Change Bill has now been introduced which sets out targeted five yearly budgets set at least 15 years ahead and aims to make a 26-32 per cent cut by 2020.
“There has been a lot of focus on food miles,” Garnett said. “But it is important to remember that the food processing industry is linked to greenhouse gases throughout the whole chain.”
She appealed to delegates that they needed to consider emissions at all stages of the food chain, from agriculture and manufacturing, refrigeration and transport, packaging and retail to the home and the waste produced. One of the agricultural 'hotspots', deemed the cause of most greenhouse gases, is the energy used to produce greenhouse vegetables, and of course anything transported by airfreight. She also pointed out that waste of fruit and vegetables in the home was the ultimate energy loss and that 11 per cent of purchased food is wasted with 25 per cent of fruit and vegetables wasted along the whole food chain.
In the UK, popular foods are the most greenhouse-gas intensive, such as berries and crop top-ups that have to be airfreighted, protected out of season vegetables and pre-prepared ready to eat fruit and bagged salad. In answer to the argument that airfreighting a product may in actual fact not be as bad as growing a product closer to home using higher levels of energy, Garnett argued that in five years, the situation will be different; customers may just have to do without. She said: “Kenyan green beans are 20-26 times more greenhouse-gas intensive than seasonal UK beans.”
Garnett ended the discussion with a look towards a future she would like to see. If the government is going to reduce emissions by 2020, it means a change for the fruit and vegetable industry. The focus will have to be on seasonal produce, she said, consumers will have to eat fruit and vegetables within the UK season, and if produce is imported from other countries it should be within their seasons; everything should be field grown and minimum temperature controls should apply.
Above all else, Garnett left the delegates with the message that all of us - as growers, importers, exporters and as consumers - should accept different notions of what constitutes quality. Something, she maintained, that large multiples will have more power over than most.
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