24 Oct Sat 2009
Latest Research From Sweden on Carbon Emissions in Farming
There was an interesting article in Friday's New York Times on Sweden's latest efforts to quantify emissions. Since an estimated 25% of industrialized nations' carbon emissions can be traced to the food they eat (not only production, but transportation, marketing, cooking, etc.), Lantmannen, Sweden's largest farming organization, decided to label greenhouse gas emissions of food.
The labels take into account variation on where the food is grown (for example carrots can vary by a factor of 10), whether a farmer grows his/her own cattlefeed, whether peat has been plowed up (releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide), and a host of other issues. In short, it is comprehensive and very similar to my demand of the local environmental economists for "a metric that crosses all platforms." I favor kilocalories, which are translatable into joules, KWH, and BTUs. The Swedes are using kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents. Not to be outdone, KRAV, Scandinavia's main organic certification program, has announced that next year farmers will have to convert to low-emissions programs to keep their certification. This means most greenhouse tomatoes in Scandinavia will no longer be labeled organic, since greenhouses are such energy hogs. This is something most US organic growers are not considering in their own tomato production.
Sweden is a small country, with a largely homogenous population. Sweden has a long history of dealing with Russia/USSR during the Cold War, while simultaneously having most of its links with the US and the EU. It is also mostly unburdened by religion and the government actually listens to its people. Thus, conditions are favorable for programs to lower its carbon emissions. In the US, the game is quite different and there really is no hope of getting something like this program going anytime in the near future. Once again, us little people have to do it ourselves and on a local level first. Here is the article for your examination.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/world/europe/23degrees.html?_r=1&th&emc=th