Food Miles and it's Impacts

As we go into semester two of sustainable agriculture, were now moving away from the idea of how we can be sustainable to the idea of why were actually choosing to do so. To follow this, we as a class have began a brand new unit that focuses on the idea of food and the comparison on how it's grown from a sustainable farmer, to inside an industrial factory, to even how the two effect politics and our federal government. This week students were given the opportunity to take on an assignment known as "Food Miles" that primarily focused on you as the student actually learning where each of the ingredients found in whatever type of cookie you choose, on where it was grown, whether that be grown in our local area, out of state, country, to how the ingredients grown were transported from the grown place to your local market or superstore, whether that be by truck, plane, cargo ship, etc. On top of all that, we even learned about the C02 or carbon dioxide emission that went into the exact mileage or distance traveled from where ever it was produced or grown from California. For example, if you were to look back at the data table included in the assignment, the distance for chocolate to get from where it was grown, "Dominican Republic" to travel all the way back to our home state California, it would take over 3,000+ miles of traveling just for it to reach California. Although a necessity item in making Chocolate Chip Cookies, the cost of C02 emission involved in the entire process is defiantly something to consider when making any type of food related item. With this assignment, I not only learned more about what goes into some of the food I consume on a day to day basis, but also where these ingredients come from and how the traveling process can effect the environment around us.

- Matthew Pollock