Since the development of agriculture, thousands of years ago, humanity’s production and consumption of food has increasingly altered environmental processes, for better and for worse. With colonialism, industrialization, and globalization, those environmental impacts have compounded into a veritable crisis. The planet’s climate is changing irrevocably, freshwater resources are dwindling, and numerous species are facing extinction. Agriculture is by no means the only source of these environmental disasters, but the agricultural sector has both great responsibility for environmental degradation, and opportunity for implementing sustainable practices. The diverse group of food commodities known as ‘fruits and vegetables’ (F&V) provide an excellent case study for the issues and possibilities of globalized agriculture and environmental degradation. The consumption of F&Vs are essential for dietary health, but the high perishability, expense, and short seasons of most are barriers to sufficient consumption, especially in low-income populations. F&V production is resource-, energy-, and labor-intensive, exhibiting a high level of food waste, and frequently exacerbates inequality gaps between rich and poor.
Local food movements have risen in popularity in many areas, often intended as a reaction to the harms and injustices wrought by globalized agribusiness led by transnational-corporations (TNCs). Supporters of food system localization praise local food production as safer, more nutritious, more environmentally sustainable, and more socially just than globalized agriculture. This essay evaluates these claims. Movements to localize fruit and vegetable systems have the potential to match growing global demand for high-quality, affordable produce, without exacerbating agricultural environmental impacts, but only if localization processes address existing sociopolitical landscapes, prioritize equity, and utilize holistic approaches tailored to each locality’s unique context.
Globalized, large-scale agribusiness is deterritorialized. Networks of producers, distributors, retailers, and consumers have become so spatiallydisparate and complex that tracing the entirety of a given food’s supply chain is frequently impossible. Even in the case of fresh fruits and vegetables, wherein a foodstuff is only one ingredient, the web of globalized food production is hopelessly tangled. Foods are ‘placeless’ (Dupuis & Goodman 2005), with ambiguous or absent connections to the cultures that originally domesticated them, to the agricultural communities that grew them, or to the environments and climates that defined them. Humans, their intentional domesticates (e.g. crops and livestock), and their unintentional domesticates (e.g. weeds and diseases) have evolved alongside each other for millennia, creating intrinsically spatial networks of interdependent species (Friedman 1999). Globalized agricultural systems abstractify and obscure these spatial ties.
Counter-seasonally produced produce – fruits and vegetables grown where they are in season, then transported, sold, and consumed where they are not in season - is certainly placeless; fruits grownon one continent can be harvested, transported, and sold thousands of miles away in the span of a few days. Year-round availability of consistent F&V commodities, regardless of season or locality, has become a food system standard. Agricultural systems designed to meet the demand for ever-larger harvests of nearly identical food commodities use ever-larger volumes of energy, water, fertilizer, pesticides, and other resources and thus wreak ever-larger environmental havoc. The ‘locational flexibility’ (Friedmann 1999) of globalized agriculture means that less desirable consequences of production - like waste - can be distanced from consumers and more easily ignored. Global agribusiness, in other words, can externalize a significant portion of their production systems.
Agricultural production is growing. Over the past two decades, global F&V production rose by 50-60%, with the most dramatic growth in Central and East Asia (Parajuli et al 2019, Stratton et al 2021). The land area devoted to avocados alone doubled from 2000-2017 (Stratton et al 2021). Demand for F&V has grown comparably (Parajuli et al 2019). Annual American avocado consumption has risen by 400% since the 1980s (Stratton et al 2021), and demand for counter-seasonal produce is unlikely to wane.
That growth is far from equitable, however. The EAT-Lancet commission found that the average person eats less than half the daily intake of vegetables recommended for a healthy diet, and less than a fourth of the recommended intake of fruits (Stratton et al 2021). The lowest rates of F&V consumption occur in low-income and/or rural areas, where an average 18% of residents consume at least the daily 400 grams of fruits and vegetables recommended by the World Health Organization (Cooper et al 2021). Production is highly uneven, too: in poorer countries, the focus of agriculture is exports, neglecting small, local, and/or rural markets in favor of more affluent markets far away. Though informal markets often supply such locales, the high price of F&V commodities (compared to other foods) and consumers’ low levels of capital mean that isolated communities are often nutritionally insecure.
Conventional globalized agriculture systems are tough on the environment. Pre-industrial agricultural methods depended on cycles of renewal, such as soil renewal via application of livestock manure. Industrial agriculture has simplified or broken many of those cycles, making farmers dependent on external inputs (like synthetic fertilizers) to maintain productivity and expanding ‘circles of eating and growing’ beyond the locality of any single actor in the agricultural system (Friedmann 1999). Focusing on market competitiveness and exportable cash crops has promoted monoculture, which necessitates resource-, energy-, and labor-intensive agricultural practices. Mexican avocado production, for example, expanded over the past two decades to meet export demands (largely from the U.S.), and that expansion has been causally linked to deforestation, soil compaction, biodiversity loss, and water pollution in Mexico (Stratton et al 2021). The massive scale of 21st-century agriculture shows up in massive environmental impacts: agriculture contributes 30-40% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions (Parajuli et al 2019) and consumes about 70% of global freshwater resources (Lanari et al 2021). Agricultural water usage and pollution are especially concerning, as potable freshwater becomes increasingly scarce in a warming climate.
Environmental impacts flow the other way, too - environmental changes associated with anthropogenic climate change are already altering agricultural yields. Precipitation patterns and temperature fluctuations alter the quality and quantity of F&V commodities. Different crops exhibit different levels of sensitivity to drought, waterlogging, temperature fluctuations, atmospheric CO2 concentration, soil salinity, and other environmental factors, but few crops are unaffected. In some places, the warming trend may encourage higher agricultural productivity: in mid- and high-latitude regions such as Canada and Russia, warmer temperatures may lengthen growing seasons, boost crop yields, and allow for the cultivation of a wider range of varieties and species of plants. However, agricultural productivity is likely to plummet in many regions currently economically focused on export agriculture, such as in Central and South America (Parajuli et al 2019).
The length of global F&V supply chains, such as for counter-seasonal produce, contributes to agriculture’s large carbon footprint. Air freight is especially impactful, but other methods of transport contribute significant GHG emissions. A study of Chilean apples exported to the U.K. found that transportation stages were responsible for 58.3% of the supply chain’s total GHG emissions, with ocean freight alone responsible for 39.2% of emissions (Iriarte et al 2021).
As a response to such profound environmental consequences and social inequities, ‘local food’ movements have become popular in affluent consumer markets across the world. Proponents of localization claim that localized food systems are more environmentally sustainable, socially just, and economically responsible. Local food is purported to be tastier, more nutritious, safer, higher-quality, and more ‘natural’ (Edwards-Jones et al 2008). A food system that can accomplish all those feats would certainly be worth pursuing. Are localized food systems actually more sustainable and equitable?
Like other processes in globalization, the globalization of agrifood industries brought wealth and power to some, while leaving others to fall behind a widening gap between rich and poor. Local food is often marketed as a form of resistance to globalized food; after all, what is ‘local’ if not the opposite of ‘global’? Marketing schemes and public opinion run with those themes, portraying buying produce from local producers as a way to bolster local economic health, eat better-quality food, and help the planet, all at once. The idea is seductive. The motives of localism movements are not always so altruistic, however; local food systems designed to enhance a region’s market competitiveness in global commodity markets - that is, economic localism systems - mirror the ‘market logic’ of neoliberal globalization and are easily co-opted by the same TNCs that localism supposedly rejects (Dupuis & Goodman 2005). Other forms of ‘unreflexive localism’ can tap into xenophobic ideologies, empowering wealthy elites to justify protectionist policies that maintain or even exacerbate wealth inequities.
The very concept of ‘local’ food is murky. What is ‘local’? Is a local food produced within the same country as the consumer who eats it? Does ‘local’ mean a set maximum of distance or time traveled between producer and consumer? For a consumer in southern Texas, for instance, what’s more local: an avocado grown in northern Mexico, or in Oregon? Should ‘local’ food indicate anything about the agricultural practices used to produce the food? What about the labor practices of the companies along the supply chain? There is no consensus about what constitutes ‘local’ food, and there is no inherent connection between the distance or time a bushel of apples travel and the ethics of the company that grows them. In other words, “to assume that locally embedded economic activities necessarily involve non-instrumental, ethics-based interpersonal relations is to ‘conflate spatial relations with social relations.’” (Dupuis & Goodman 2005, p4). While ‘placeless’ globalized agribusiness is certainly notorious for its anomic capitalism, simply shortening the supply chain does not automatically instill an ‘ethics of care’ into the actions of farmers, supply chains actors, or consumers (Dupuis & Goodman 2005). Without careful attention, foods marketed as ‘local’ may simply be greenwashing products to justify a higher retail price.
In addition, local food movements are frequently championed by the white middle-class. Reform movements led by the white middle class have a disturbing track record of imposing a “politics of conversion” (Dupuis & Goodman 2005) on communities they deem in need of improvement. That is, white middle-class reformers tend to promote a sanitarian, “socially homogenized and exclusionary” (Dupuis & Goodman 2005) utopian imaginary onto marginalized groups, withholding ‘help’ from those who don’t conform to those standards. In other words, “institutionalized racism is hidden behind a representation of what is ‘’normal’’, with all variations from this norm represented as deviations” (Dupuis & Goodman 2005 p4). Rhetoric about the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ in receiving welfare benefits provides an excellent example. That is not to say that movements with a majority of white middle-class proponents cannot help dismantle unjust institutions and do good work, but movements that claim to empower local communities must include the voices and priorities of the peoples being ‘helped’. When localism movements ignore political landscapes shaping power relations in a community, proponents intending to empower the least powerful in a community may instead reify existing inequalities. “The local is often a site of inequality and hegemonic domination” (Dupuis & Goodman 2005, p1), and care must be taken to challenge rather than reinforce existing patterns of oppression.
In terms of environmental sustainability, the argument for local food seems simple. Transporting food across oceans and continents requires significant resource and energy output, so shortening the distance a commodity travels from ‘farm to fork’ must shrink that commodity’s carbon footprint. When all other variables - agricultural practices, seasonality, transportation efficiency, cold storage infrastructure, spoilage rates, etc. - are equal, a shorter supply chain would certainly equal a smaller environmental impact for any F&V commodity. However, the variables in any two supply chains vary considerably. Iriarte et al found that the carbon footprint of Chilean apples shipped to the UK is 0.54 kg CO2e/kg apple, but could not accurately determine the carbon footprint of equivalent apples produced in the U.K., even though 39% of fresh apples sold in the U.K. are produced domestically (while only 7.2% are imported from Chile)(Iriarte et al 2021). Studies of the environmental impacts of F&V supply chains are far from standardized, with very few considering the entire chain (Iriarte et al 2021). Definitions and measurements for carbon footprints vary between studies. Many such studies use life cycle assessment (LCA) methods, but different LCA approaches include widely varying statistical analyses and exclude different variables.
The seasonality of a given F&V commodity contributes much to its environmental impact: the carbon footprint of a fruit shipped counter-seasonally from another continent (where the fruit is in season) is difficult to compare to that of a fruit grown locally, but held in resource-intensive cold storage for months before sale. The agricultural practices a farm uses, such as pest management inputs, irrigation efficiency, cold storage infrastructure, monitoring technology, polyculture, crop rotation, glasshouse cultivation, open-field cultivation, or countless other methods, also alter the environmental impacts an F&V industry creates. F&V commodities are also a comparatively very diverse food group, incorporating a broad array of crops with disparate needs for water, fertilizer, pest management, soil conditions, temperature, growing time, storage, etc. Any accurate statement about F&V commodity impacts, whether local or global, would need to be so generalized as to be useless. Iriarte et al emphasized the need for standardized methods in environmental impact assessments, concluding that “statements about relevance of food miles on CF emissions and its policy recommendations need specific-case analyses” (p6) and “depending on the case being compared, locally produced food will not necessarily have a lower environmental impact than food from distant markets’’ (Iriarte et al 2021, p8). Edwards-Jones et al similarly conclude that “the characteristics of the supply chain are probably more important in determining quality of fruits and vegetables than is the distance between producer and consumer” (p7) and that “it is currently impossible to state categorically whether or not local food systems emit fewer GHGs than non-local food systems” (p6).
Is the local food movement all a smokescreen, then? Are there no better alternatives to global agribusiness? Dupuis and Goodman envision a more sustainable type of ‘reflexive’ localism, rooted in a “politics of respect”: frameworks of localized food systems that empower different communities to promote differing ‘right ways’ of eating, and adapting localization to the unique contexts and priorities of their locales (Dupuis & Goodman 2005). While there is no single solution for more sustainable and equitable food everywhere, there are certainly solutions that individual communities can shape to their needs, such as adopting policy for more affordable produce, developing cold storage and transportation systems, promoting value-added (i.e. processed) F&V products, and incorporating more sustainable agricultural practices.
The primary barrier to higher F&V consumption is often the high retail price of fruits and vegetables (compared to other food groups). Subsidies to producers and retailers for F&V commodities, price caps, or other such policy-led financial incentives could serve to make fresh F&Vs more accessible to low-income consumers.
Alternatively, in many places, a lack of adequate cold storage and transportation infrastructure are major barriers to higher F&V consumption. F&V commodities are especially perishable, so the ability of producers to transport crops quickly and/or to extend shelf life is critical. Markets in the rural villages of Bihar, India face such challenges; municipal investment in infrastructure development, such as paved roads, refrigerated and frozen storage, and communications technology (to allow better coordination between supply chain actors), could lower the high price of fruits and vegetables, aiding higher F&V consumption for Bihar’s nutritionally insecure rural communities. Other supply chain innovations, such as applying edible coatings to fresh tomatoes to extend shelf life, using co-products in post-harvest processing, and using biodegradable packaging, can lessen the environmental burden of F&V production and consumption.
Food processing is an especially salient opportunity for F&V companies to extend shelf life and minimize food waste. ‘Processing’ has become a somewhat derogatory term, but as long as processors take care to preserve the nutritional profiles of processed F&V and limit additives, processed foods can deliver nutritional benefits comparable to their fresh equivalents with about 14% less overall food waste in production (Parajuli et al 2019). Most F&V products are highly perishable, and processing methods such as freezing or drying extend the shelf life of foods that might otherwise spoil. Processing F&Vs into products like sauces, jams, or other ready-to-eat foods also provides a use for cosmetically less-than-perfect (but nutritionally sound) items that may not be considered suitable for sale in groceries or other food retailers.
On-farm producers can also take action to lessen their environmental impacts. Some ‘good agricultural practices’ (GAP)(Iriarte et al 2019), like crop rotation, polyculture, aquaculture, and ‘biological control agents’ (i.e., introducing natural predators of pests to the farm) date back millennia. Others, like high-tech efficient irrigation, real-time digital plant monitoring, hydroponics, ‘diversified production systems’ (like food forests), urban agriculture, and “integrated pest management” methods have more recent origins. Farmers can also plant crop varieties that are more resistant to water stress, temperature fluctuations, or other environmental factors relevant to their area. One possible response to the warming effects of climate change is to shift planting calendars to accommodate different temperatures (Stratton et al 2021). Using more diverse water sources for irrigation also helps (Lanari et al 2021); the best balance of water sources is unique to local contexts.
Where producers have the means to incorporate more sustainable practices, but little incentive to do so, labeling sustainably grown F&V commodities could encourage action. Other labels to promote sustainable and/or socially just production practices, such as ‘organic’ and ‘fair trade’ products, have received considerable attention; tagging F&V products with a ‘sustainably grown’ label could create consumer demand and thus producer incentive (Edwards-Jones et al 2008, Stratton et al 2021). Such labeling incentives are not without potential problems, but examining such problems is beyond the scope of this paper.
Restructuring the geographical distribution of F&V production may provide producers with opportunities to reduce agricultural environmental consequences. Many agricultural centers are located in areas of low rainfall, such as in California and more arid parts of Mexico. Relocating some agricultural activity to areas with more rainfall could relieve the burden agriculture places on the watersheds of such arid regions (Parajuli et al 2019). Returning agriculture to a “specifics of place”—that is, adapting agricultural complexes to a region, rather than growing a universal agricultural complex everywhere—would reconnect ecological cycles of renewal broken during colonialism, industrialization, and globalization (Friedmann 1999). In the case of pre-washed/ready-to-eat leafy greens, with their extremely short shelf life and high vulnerability for contamination, redistributing production to more small-scale companies closer to the urban markets that demand high volumes of salad greens could both reduce the chance for large scale food contamination incidents and more evenly distribute the environmental impacts of production.(Stratton et al 2021). Large-scale agricultural relocation could be challenging, as agricultural companies wield significant social and political power in agricultural centers, and such relocation processes would be expensive, labor-intensive, and certain to disrupt existing supply chains. Additionally, depending on how the abandoned agricultural lands are repurposed, such relocation may not yield a net positive for environmental impact.
Whatever tactics producers, policy-makers, consumers, and everyone in between pursue to reduce agricultural environmental impacts, reforms must account for the existing power relations in any locale. Localization reforms must strive to empower those neglected by globalized TNC-led agribusiness. Food system localization processes must also utilize holistic, multi-sector approaches to reform. No single approach will suffice; “complex issues in the food system will require coordinated, bundled solutions rather than silver bullets” (Stratton et al 2021, p3). Agriculture needs to be central to human environmental management conversations, and companies can no longer be allowed to externalize environmental pollution, degradation and depletion.
Most importantly, food system reforms must be customized to the unique needs of each local context. There are myriad technical solutions and opportunities for social restructuring, but not all are appropriate for every food system. For food systems reforms to be effective, efficient, and equitable, communities need diversified and context-based solutions. Since “all eating—like all human action—is imperfect and contradictory” (Dupuis & Goodman 2005, p4), food system reforms will inevitably reflect the complexity of such imperfection.
Table 2 shows the study’s findings of each transportation stage’s contribution to the supply chain’s carbon footprint (Iriarte et al. 2021).
Note: Methodology of Iriarte et al 2021
Iriarte et al conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint (CF) analysis of Chilean apples exported to (and consumed in) the U.K. There are an immeasurable variety of pathways a given apple harvest might take from the apple tree to the consumer’s plate, so the study makes several assumptions and assertions to measure the likely impacts of U.K.-imported Chilean apples. The study area is the Maule region of Central Chile, the country’s primary apple production area. ‘Export apples’ here refer to Royal Gala red apples, which constitute 73% of the apples exported from the study area.
Primary data directly collected by the authors was used for the Chilean life cycle stages (farm, packing facility, refrigeration, and Chilean transport). Data for the ‘Chilean port’ stage was calculated using the organizational CF reports for a typical apple export location: the port of Valparaiso. Ocean freight data was retrieved from the 3.2 version of the Ecoinvent database, a Swiss database of life cycle inventory (LCI) data for use in LCAs, originally developed in 2000 (Swiss Centre for LCI 2015). For the U.K. stages (U.K. port to consumer), data from an existing study, Rizet et al 2008, was used. The Rizet et al study examines apples exported to the U.K. from New Zealand, but the domestic distribution channels are assumed to be the same as for Chilean apples. The GHG emissions estimates of the transport stages (in Chile, overseas, and in the U.K.) are calculated as one-way trips, assuming trucks/ships carry another load on the trip back.
Figure 1. The 13 life cycle stages included in the assessment: the farm, Chilean transport (from the farm to the packer), the packing facility, refrigeration, Chilean transport (from packer to port), the Chilean sea port, overseas transport, the U.K. sea port, U.K. transport (from port to distributor), the distribution facility, U.K. transport (from distributor to retailer), retailer, and U.K. transport (from retailer to consumer). The assessment excludes any food processing steps, as well as consumption and disposal (Iriarte et al 2021).