Ethical and technical issues for transport, distribution and retail sale of fresh horticultural crops

摘要

While there has been much emphasis on the concept of "food miles" in the last several years, the concepts of "carbon footprint" and "water footprint" are emerging as being more informative in evaluating ethical practices for distribution of food around the world. Intuitively, the idea of being a "locavore" (i.e., eating only locally grown and produced foods) implies that there is very low impact on the environment and climate for this consumer choice. However, in reality when appropriate life cycle analysis is completed, it becomes clear that in some cases long distance transport is ecologically superior to local production and storage. In addition, long distance transport enables the improvement in economic situations for developing world countriesthat are able to produce fruits and vegetables that are of better quality and/or are exotic to the distant countries that buy them. Hence long distance transport can provide a smaller carbon and water footprint for many commodities while also enabling economic development. However, long distance transport, distribution and retail sale of fresh horticultural crops presents a myriad of technical challenges since many of the commodities are highly perishable and chilling sensitive. These challenges are not insurmountable and several examples of successes in overcoming them will be discussed. The challenges that continue to exist, and which need attention, will also be discussed to encourage new research and development focus to support the susta i nabili ty of these long distance value chains.