Fuel miles and eco-protectionism

[subtle_eye]

People who automatically equate purchasing domestically produced with environmentally friendly make me angry. Partially because it commingles something I love about progressive politics (Environmentalism) with something I detest (Protectionism, tariffs, anti-trade

Comments

[sly_girl]

I think you need to factor in the cost of getting it on the boat. Overseas products are not produced at the port. They need to be transported - by those very carbon costly trucks - overland before they even get on to the boat. The cost of shipping stuff overseas is an additional cost to land transport costs, not an alternative.

Further, once it has arrived from overseas, the stuff still has to be packed on to trucks to get it places within Australia. Unfortunately, all those carbon debits don't just disappear.

[mordwen]

Interesting point, thanks...

It's factored ...

[subtle_eye]

... and not mentioned because it's proportionately negligible.

Most of what I'm personally fulminating against is the reactionary "oh noes! teh food miles!" that I see far too much of instead of engagement with the real issues.

The cost of food transportation -- and the ensuing carbon is close to invisible in our society ... the "drive down to the shop and buy a litre of milk, luv?" attitude. Is the farmer in the developing world saving to educate his kids likely to be so laissez-faire about the cost of transporting his livelihood to the point of sale? I don't think so.

[sly_girl]

Well ... you claim that it's negligible. I think you're mistaken.

It's not the farmer in the developing country who's getting the stuff on the boat. The farmer in the developing country is not the one transporting the stuff 300km to the nearest sea port. It's not getting there by mule train, it's being driven. In trucks.

It's cheaper than the cost of transport at this end so it makes economic sense to do so but the carbon cost is just as much. It uses just as much fuel, but because you're paying bugger all to the growers and driver in SE Asia, your rice costs less.

There are arguments to be made where you touch on developing economies and markets, but I don't think your fuel costs add up.

[subtle_eye]

Do some research. Mine says a lot of bulk freight in the developing world uses either coastal shipping or river transport. Because agriculture = river irrigation. And it may be cheaper due to lower labour costs of drivers, but road transport is *disproportionately* expensive.

Looking at the CIA factbook, in China the GDP for a person in the agricultural sector is $950. Not income, that's the some total of their economic production. What proportion of that do you think they can afford to spend on transportation? Fuel and vehicle maintenance is *just* as expensive in China as over here, it's just labor that's cheap.

In the entire time I was in China, I saw a lot of buses and a lot of construction trucks. I didn't see much in the way of road freight at all.

[sly_girl]

I didn't think the farmer was spending any of their income on transport. Stuff for international trade isn't pedalled up to the port by a peasant farmer, it's bought regionally and transported by the shipping company.

FTR - while we're all buying imported food, what does happen to locally produced products?